July 20, 2002	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 9, 1423

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LAHORE, July 19: The Pakistan football team has a challenging task ahead of beating formidable Kuwait in its opening match of the Asian Games to be held in Busan, South Korea, from Sept 30 to Oct 14.

Besides, Pakistan and Kuwait, the other teams included in the group “F” are Hong Kong and Tajikistan.

 To finalise the Pakistan squad for the Asiad a training camp is to start at the Jinnah Stadium, Islamabad, from Saturday for which 32 probables have already been called.

Pakistan’s Slovenian coach Jozef Herel told Dawn that Kuwait were runners-up in last Asian Games.

A win or a draw against Kuwait would be a great result. Herel believed that Pakistan was capable of beating Hong Kong and Tajikistan as both the teams were at par with Pakistan.

He said Pakistan team’s realistic targets were the SAF Games scheduled for Islamabad and the SAARC Gold Cup in Bangladesh as Pakistan were good enough to win these tournaments.

Herel said that as three players were allowed to each country for inclusion in their team irrespective of their ages , he has selected five senior players for the camp.

They are Haroon Yousaf, Shahid Akhtar, Sarfraz Rasool, Tanveer Ahmad and Naseer Ahmed. The remaining members of the official team will be under-23.