CHENNAI: Less than two years ago, Syria’s football team was the cynosure of all eyes. Even as civil war and ISIS ravaged their homeland, the Syrians had somehow fought their way to being within minutes of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Their dream though ended at the very last hurdle at the hands of Australia. Now they are on the cusp of another qualifying campaign and the Intercontinental Cup is what coach Fajr Ibrahim has chosen to use as a final test event.
For the football team, like the whole of the country itself, the mantra is reconstruction. As war waged on in their homeland for years, the team that represented Syria was comprised mainly of players who plied their trade overseas. The squad that Ibrahim has brought to Ahmedabad is the first one in a while to be comprised mostly of Syria-based players. “At that time, most of the national team played outside, maybe 80 per cent,” Ibrahim says. “Now we have a new generation — only three players here are seniors.”
Ibrahim knows it’s not going to be easy, especially as the rest of Asia has made giant strides in the years that Syria were virtually forced to sit out. “The Syrian league was one of the best in Asia. The first AFC Cups, Syrian clubs won. We had fantastic football at that time. Some clubs were seeing crowds as strong as 40,000. But in war, everything changes, you have to save yourself first,” he says. “We stopped work with the grassroots during the war, more than 5-6 years ago. The circumstances were very difficult.
“The league stopped. Most of the players weren’t playing and most of the coaches weren’t working. Many people died, some of them players. I know a lot of the players fought with the government. I know a lot of the players fought against the government.” The war was tough for Ibrahim personally as well — his son Ali was fighting in the government army.
Things are looking up though. Football is now played at most grounds in Syria with the most recent season of the Syrian Premier League featuring two teams each from cities like Aleppo and Homs, which were most hit by the war. Ibrahim says that some of the stadia see average attendances of up to 30,000. “Now we can play football in any state in Syria, there’s just a problem in one state only, Idlib near the Turkey border. When we finish with this state, everything will be safe in Syria. But I can tell you 95 per cent of Syria is safe,” he says.
“The league now has fourteen clubs,” says Ibrahim. “Every club has a football school, with some of them having 100-200 young players. They have kids from 6-12 years and we start the league from U-14 onwards. We have a lot of talent in our system. I think maybe in 4-8 years, we will see them develop.”
We have to restart out grassroots work. We also need quality coaches for that. It’s not good for ‘C’ license coaches to work with grassroots, we need ‘A’ and Pro license coaches,” he says. “For sure, it’s (the task on hand) very hard. I spoke to the federation about it. I told them, now is a crucial time. I told them I needed support and time and they’ve given me both.”