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Karachi: Top Group ‘H’ team Hungary was given a tough time by Pakistan players, who didn’t look minnows in any way in their last game of the 2nd Six-a-side Socca World Cup underway in Crete, Greece.
According to information made available here, match favorites Hungary took the lead in the 6th minute with B. Hollauer scoring the goal. Pakistan players displayed attacking show to pull an equalizer, against Hungarian players’ expectation, who were astonished to see Pakistan’s resilience. The efforts of the Pakistan players paid dividend in the 17th minute when Shaban scored a brilliant goal to level arrears.
Hungary then started to exert pressure with the top group position in mind. C. Poncok managed to restore the lead in the 20th minute for Hungary, making it 2-1.
Despite their underdogs tag against Hungary, which is a well-known football playing nation, Pakistan looked quite in the match for most part of the game and commentators showered praise on Pakistan, who is yet to make its presence felt in the international football arena.
The score-line remained 2-1 for over 30 minutes – three quarters of the game as Pakistan players were seen effectively restricting attacking Hungarian players from scoring more goals.
However, with an equalizer on mind, Pakistan players gave space to Hungary players to attack and conceded two back to back goals in 31st and 34th minute – scored by B. Bognár and R. Rábold respectively. However, the 4-1 final score-line doesn’t do justice to the way Pakistan players played in the game.
Pakistan was the only country in Group ‘H’ who has never played in FIFA Football World Cup while all other teams in the group – Hungary, Germany, Romania and Slovenia have featured in the second biggest sports spectacle after summer Olympics. Most of them have impressive record in the tournament and all are well known football playing nations.
In this backdrop, a 3-2 defeat from defending champions Germany and 4-1 from Hungary should be considered satisfactory for a country, which is yet to make its presence felt in the world of football.
According to assistant coach Gohar Zaman, Pakistan’s participation in two back to back Socca World Cups and scoring goals against big names like Germany, Hungary and Slovenia is the biggest achievement for the country so far in the world of football in recent history.