BELEK, Turkey — Anoush Dastgir often is the hardest-working man in soccer, however by Saturday, his job had taken a toll.
Dastgir, the coach of Afghanistan’s males’s nationwide crew, was sitting in an empty restaurant on the resort the place he and his crew have been making ready for an exhibition match in opposition to Indonesia. It was 11 p.m., and Dastgir was battling what gave the impression of a heavy chilly. Which wasn’t shocking, given he now had a dozen jobs to do.
Teaching a nationwide soccer crew is hard sufficient anyplace, however teaching Afghanistan has lengthy had distinctive challenges.
It is likely one of the world’s poorest international locations and a spot the place civil struggle and Taliban rule as soon as stored the nationwide crew from enjoying a recreation for nearly twenty years. The nation is taken into account so unsafe, actually, that FIFA, soccer’s international governing physique, has lengthy banned its groups from enjoying at house. More often than not, that hardly mattered: Afghanistan is ranked 152nd on the planet. And it has by no means certified for a serious event.
Nonetheless, circumstances obtained even tougher over the summer time, when the Taliban swept again into Kabul, the Afghan authorities collapsed and its president, Ashraf Ghani — to not point out tens of hundreds of his countrymen and girls — fled the nation.
Dastgir misplaced entry to a part of his crew and half his workers within the chaos. Two workers members at the moment are in refugee camps in Qatar. Two others are in Afghanistan, keen to depart. His roster is populated virtually solely by Afghan refugees, or the sons of refugees, who’ve discovered shelter within the Netherlands, Germany, the US, Sweden and past through the years, fleeing the varied conflicts which have Afghanistan for the reason that Eighties. However a number of nonetheless spend time in Afghanistan, and this 12 months even doing that turned a priority.
One in all Dastgir’s most vital gamers, Noor Husin, who left for Britain when he was six, was within the northern metropolis of Mazar-i-Sharif in July because the Taliban approached. “I used to be terrified to be sincere,” he mentioned. “As a result of day by day there was information, they’re getting nearer, they’re within the outskirts of town. And I used to be considering, certainly not. You simply didn’t suppose it was going to occur.”
Husin managed to get to Kabul and scramble in another country, however he — like a lot of his teammates — thought the nationwide crew was completed. “Everybody thought, that is the top, the top of the whole lot,” he mentioned.
Dastgir, although, was decided to maintain it alive, to have it proceed to serve, he mentioned, as a uncommon image of unity in a rustic typically divided alongside ethnic or linguistic strains. So a number of weeks in the past, he picked up the cellphone and organized a pleasant match — the primary for the reason that Taliban took over — in opposition to Indonesia. That was the simple half. He then needed to discover a website for the sport, organize flights and visas for gamers and supply coronavirus assessments for everybody. With the Afghan soccer federation’s checking account frozen, Dastgir efficiently petitioned FIFA for assist financing the journey.
With no package man, Dastgir additionally needed to ship 450 kilos of coaching gear himself, after which persuade his brother-in-law to assist him wash it. He purchased soccer balls, organized referees and — and not using a communications crew — promoted the sport on his personal social media accounts. He even negotiated a broadcasting contract to verify the utmost variety of folks again in Afghanistan may watch the match. After which, with all that completed, he nonetheless needed to discover time to educate the crew.
However as midnight neared within the resort restaurant on Saturday, there was nonetheless one vital situation to resolve: Which flag would the crew fly?
A Younger Chief
At 31, Dastgir is likely one of the youngest coaches in world soccer. Born in Kabul, he escaped the nation’s civil struggle along with his household shortly after Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989. He was just some months outdated, and grew up in Pakistan after which India earlier than settling within the Netherlands.
In Europe, he realized Dutch and was scouted by a number one membership, NEC Nijmegen. He was ultimately referred to as up for the Afghan nationwide crew however appeared in a handful of video games earlier than a knee harm ended his enjoying profession.
“My coaches mentioned, ‘It’s important to begin teaching,’ as a result of as a participant I used to be sort of chief of the crew,” he mentioned. His first alternative to guide Afghanistan got here in 2016, when a overseas coach didn’t flip up for a recreation amid a contract dispute.
“The gamers mentioned, ‘I believe Anoush can deal with it,’” Dastgir recalled. He misplaced that recreation however the crew had performed effectively. The subsequent time the put up got here open, in 2018, he was given the job.
By then, he was on the hunt for Afghan gamers. Many have been found among the many huge Afghan diaspora, refugees and their youngsters unfold around the globe. When a match in opposition to Palestine in Kabul was organized in 2018, the primary worldwide recreation to be performed in Afghanistan in years, Dastgir referred to as in a lot of his discoveries.
“I needed to have these gamers in Afghanistan to really feel the nation, to see the folks, as a result of most of them are born outdoors the nation,” he mentioned. “So in the event you inform them play on your nation, they’re like, ‘What’s that?’”
Even now, the crew’s place as a visual multicultural establishment reveals up in coaching periods.
Directions have been shouted out in Dutch and Pashto. Encouragement was provided in German, Dari and English. Typically, Dastgir switched languages midsentence. “My first captain is Tajik,” he mentioned. “My second captain is Pashtun. My third captain is Hazara.” Two of his gamers, the brothers Adam and David Najem, have been born in New Jersey.
Nonetheless, because the match neared, the questions of the flag and the anthem remained unresolved. This was not a call to be taken frivolously. The Taliban’s white flag, with the Shahada — the Muslim declaration of religion — printed on it, has changed the inexperienced, pink and black tricolor over Afghanistan’s presidential palace. And because the Taliban have instituted a broad ban on music, the nationwide anthem has successfully been outlawed.
Dastgir knew that enjoying it and flying the outdated flag can be controversial; the nation’s males’s cricket crew was rebuked by a Taliban chief after doing so on the Twenty20 World Cup. He knew his selection may cost a little him his job or worse.
“I’m not afraid of getting fired,” Dastgir mentioned. “I’m the top coach of the nationwide crew of 37 million Afghans. I’m not the nationwide crew coach of the Taliban regime, or the regime of Ghani. We by no means did it for the federal government. We did it for the folks.”
Cheers Far From Residence
Nobody in Afghanistan’s camp was certain if any supporters would really come to observe them play in Belek, a coastal city close to Antalya.
Stadium officers apprehensive about coronavirus restrictions have been assuaged when Dastgir agreed to pay for safety out of his personal pocket. There was additionally the difficulty of whether or not the Turkish police would possibly show to be a deterrent. Not less than 300,000 Afghan refugees and migrants have discovered shelter in Turkey in recent times, and lots of are undocumented. However because the daylight pale and kickoff approached, tons of of followers lined up outdoors the stadium gate.
“I wish to present I’m Afghan,” mentioned Mursal, an 18-year-old pupil wrapped in a big Afghan flag however cautious sufficient to say no to present her final identify. She had fled to Turkey 4 years in the past, after her father was killed in Afghanistan, and had discovered few alternatives to wave the Afghan flag since she arrived. “It’s our flag. You don’t have one other flag. Simply this flag, and nobody can change it.”
600 supporters — the restrict agreed upon with stadium officers — quickly streamed in, filling the stadium’s one lengthy grandstand.
A couple of minutes earlier than kickoff, the groups lined up at midfield. In entrance of them, two of Afghanistan’s substitutes unfurled a big inexperienced, pink and black flag, the one Dastgir had carried with him to Belek. The anthem performed, a second beamed to thousands and thousands of Afghans again house. Nobody was there to take the standard prematch photograph: The squad’s official photographer escaped to Portugal months in the past.
The sport was frantic, soundtracked by the fixed noise of the Afghan followers. Dastgir, dressed all in black, calmly gave tactical directions. Late within the second half, he summoned Omid Popalzay, a Dutch-raised midfielder final seen enjoying in Poland’s fourth tier. Within the eighty fifth minute, a number of moments after getting into the sport as an alternative, Popalzay scored. Minutes later, the ultimate whistle blew. Afghanistan had received, and the followers erupted with pleasure.
One fan jumped 12 toes down onto the operating monitor surrounding the sector hoping to get a selfie, however he was intercepted by the police and frog-marched again by his neck. One participant, Norlla Amiri, climbed onto the shoulders of a teammate so his toddler son might be handed right down to him.
Different followers threw their cellphones to the gamers, asking for selfies. Many needed photos with Faysal Shayesteh, a 30-year-old midfielder who has had a globe-trotting skilled profession since transferring to the Netherlands as a boy.
Practically all Afghan followers knew Shayesteh due to his tattoos, together with the one throughout his chest that reveals Kabul’s skyline beneath a fighter jet and an assault helicopter, every bombarding town with pink hearts. Above his left breast have been two GPS coordinates: The primary is for Hengelo, town in japanese Holland the place he grew up. The opposite is Kabul, the place he was born.
“If I discuss it I get emotional,” he mentioned, holding again tears. “As a result of I do know what the folks in Afghanistan are going by way of. And I do know that is the one factor that makes them completely satisfied, successful a recreation for the nationwide crew. That is the one factor they’ve, so I’m very completely satisfied.”
Dastgir watched all of it unfold from the again, filming a few of it on his cellphone to put up on his Instagram account. Nobody had completed extra to make the second occur than him.