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From Chaman to California: Kaleemullah's story
UMAID WASIM
As the sun began to set behind the Army football stadium on a nippy Lahore evening in February 2014, Kaleemullah received the ball on the right wing.
Three Pakistan Army defenders converged, tightly closing the space for the Khan Research Laboratories’ (KRL) striker. But Kaleem found a way, dragging two on his left with him before cutting quickly past the third on his right. He played the ball into space towards Mahmood Khan.
Mahmood returned the ball quickly to Kaleem as he ran across him and with a scintillating first touch, the nifty striker threaded a perfectly weighted through-ball to teammate Saddam Hussain who rounded off the goalkeeper and tapped in to make it 2-0 to KRL.
Kaleem had put KRL ahead seven minutes earlier in the game. They only needed to draw to ensure a third successive Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL) title.
Saddam’s strike had effectively done that 18 minutes into the match before Dawood Khan added a third on the hour mark to give KRL a 3-1 win under a red-hued sky.
They celebrated their title triumph but coach Tariq Lutfi was mindful that this was the pinnacle for the team he had built and soon there would be a number of sides around the world chasing his most coveted talents.
One of those stars, winger Mohammad Adil, had already signed for Kyrgyzstan giants FC Dordoi Bishkek and was set to fly after KRL’s last match of the season in three days’ time.
There were a number of sides after Kaleem too and Lutfi acknowledged after the match that the Chaman-born star striker would be the next to go the same route.
Kaleem knew he would be miss the service Adil provided him with.
That particular season had been less prolific for the striker who had struck a whopping 32 goals a year before to show how incredible a striker he was.
The tally was down to 21 goals as KRL completed a hattrick of domestic titles but his all-round game had improved. With Adil, he had formed a front duo that terrorised defences in the PPFL.
“Kaleem has been the most influential player this season,” Lutfi had said after that game against Army.
“He’s become a complete player this season. He’s shown that he has the temperament to be a top professional.”
Instead of preying around the box, Kaleem had dropped back in the 2013 season. He was linking up play with the midfield, creating space for others to take advantage of and setting up goals for the others with the vision in his passing.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to hold onto him for too long,” Lutfi, who Kaleem describes as one of the most influential people in his career, added.
Lutfi was right. Almost a year and a half later, Kaleem had set the Kyrgyz Shoro League alight with his dazzling talent and earlier this June signed a four-month deal with Sacramento Republic FC in the United States.
“It’s just the beginning for me,” Kaleem tells Dawn in an exclusive interview since joining the US club.
His journey thus far, though, is an inspiring one – one that Kaleem hopes will push kids in Pakistan to seriously think about football as a career
Personal Tragedy
Kaleem caught the attention of the football fraternity with a stunning breakthrough season in 2012-13.
Then a rangy young lad with unkempt hair and beard, he plundered 32 goals – the most scored by a player in a 30-match PPFL season.
“Football kept me going. It's more than a way of life for me.” — Photo by Umer Sayyam
His feat was even more remarkable considering the he hadn't found the target in the first nine games of the season.
“I used to play on the left wing in the beginning and it took me a bit of time to adjust as a centre-forward but when that happened, the goals came thick and fast,” Kaleem recollects.
“That was a fantastic season for me.”
That season came two years after Kaleem suffered a huge personal loss – the death of his father in 2010 which followed the sad demise of his mother three years earlier.
“I wasn’t there when my mother passed away and I also missed my father’s funeral because I was in Myanmar at that time [playing in the AFC President’s Cup with KRL],” Kaleem recalls with a heavy voice.
“It was tough for me, really tough. I was 18 and I’d lost both my parents. I wanted to show my parents that I could be a top professional footballer.
“Where I am today is because of their prayers. I miss them a lot but I hope they’re happy up in the heavens when they look down on me.
“Football kept me going all this time. It's more than a way of life for me.”
Kaleem admits that in the beginning, his parents weren’t really supportive of his interest in the sport.
The lack of support stemmed from the fact that not many people at that time thought that there was a future as a footballer – this despite Chaman producing a number of famous players notably former Pakistan captain Mohammad Essa who is Kaleem’s cousin.
“People used to tell me football doesn’t pay that well … that there was no future as a professional footballer,” Kaleem says of the time when he was still a student at the Government High School Chaman.
“They told me I would never make it to the top and as a footballer my future would be limited to Pakistan since by that time none of our local stars had gone abroad to play professionally.
There were no proper academies either where the young aspirant could train to be a professional.
“But I kept going. I used to train alone on a field near our house where I would have a kick-about in the evening.”
“They told me I would never make it to the top.” — Photo by Umer Sayyam
It was during one of those self-training sessions where Kaleem’s potential was first spotted.
“I was training on my own in the field when a couple of individuals from the district team spotted me,” says Kaleem.
“They thought that I had the talent in me and the team signed me up.”
A few sterling performances for the district side piqued the interest of PPFL side Afghan FC Chaman and in 2007, Kaleem was inducted in their youth team, Young Afghan.
A year later, Kaleem was promoted to the senior team.
“This was when my father realised that I had the necessary talent to make it to the top as a footballer,” Kaleem informs.
The biggest realisation, however, came when KRL came calling.
“KRL saw me play for just 20 minutes as a substitute for Afghan FC in a match against them and decided to sign me. It was at the time the biggest day of my life.”
National reckoning
It was KRL manager Ayaz Butt who Kaleem says instilled the belief in him that he could cut it at the top level.
“Ayaz Butt told me he wanted to nurture my talent,” Kaleem says.
“He believed in my abilities.”
In his very first season, he won the double of PPFL and the National Challenge Cup but it was the next year in the country’s premier cup event when he really made his mark.
Top-scorer in the event in Multan, he helped KRL retain their title before Lutfi took over KRL for the 2011-12 season as head-coach.
“Lutfi is the sort of coach who backs his players,” Kaleem says.
“He pushed me to get better and better.”
Another Challenge Cup and PPFL title followed with Kaleem scoring 13 goals in the campaign.
Primarily used as a second-striker who made surging runs from the left, Kaleem was pushing for a place in the centre.
Rizwan Asif, Kaleem’s young teammate at KRL, was thriving as a centre forward before he was struck down with injury at the start of the 2012-13 season.
Kaleemullah (c) celebrates Pakistan's 2-0 win over India in Bangalore. — AP
UMAID WASIM
As the sun began to set behind the Army football stadium on a nippy Lahore evening in February 2014, Kaleemullah received the ball on the right wing.
Three Pakistan Army defenders converged, tightly closing the space for the Khan Research Laboratories’ (KRL) striker. But Kaleem found a way, dragging two on his left with him before cutting quickly past the third on his right. He played the ball into space towards Mahmood Khan.
Mahmood returned the ball quickly to Kaleem as he ran across him and with a scintillating first touch, the nifty striker threaded a perfectly weighted through-ball to teammate Saddam Hussain who rounded off the goalkeeper and tapped in to make it 2-0 to KRL.
Kaleem had put KRL ahead seven minutes earlier in the game. They only needed to draw to ensure a third successive Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL) title.
Saddam’s strike had effectively done that 18 minutes into the match before Dawood Khan added a third on the hour mark to give KRL a 3-1 win under a red-hued sky.
They celebrated their title triumph but coach Tariq Lutfi was mindful that this was the pinnacle for the team he had built and soon there would be a number of sides around the world chasing his most coveted talents.
One of those stars, winger Mohammad Adil, had already signed for Kyrgyzstan giants FC Dordoi Bishkek and was set to fly after KRL’s last match of the season in three days’ time.
There were a number of sides after Kaleem too and Lutfi acknowledged after the match that the Chaman-born star striker would be the next to go the same route.
Kaleem knew he would be miss the service Adil provided him with.
That particular season had been less prolific for the striker who had struck a whopping 32 goals a year before to show how incredible a striker he was.
The tally was down to 21 goals as KRL completed a hattrick of domestic titles but his all-round game had improved. With Adil, he had formed a front duo that terrorised defences in the PPFL.
“Kaleem has been the most influential player this season,” Lutfi had said after that game against Army.
“He’s become a complete player this season. He’s shown that he has the temperament to be a top professional.”
Instead of preying around the box, Kaleem had dropped back in the 2013 season. He was linking up play with the midfield, creating space for others to take advantage of and setting up goals for the others with the vision in his passing.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to hold onto him for too long,” Lutfi, who Kaleem describes as one of the most influential people in his career, added.
Lutfi was right. Almost a year and a half later, Kaleem had set the Kyrgyz Shoro League alight with his dazzling talent and earlier this June signed a four-month deal with Sacramento Republic FC in the United States.
“It’s just the beginning for me,” Kaleem tells Dawn in an exclusive interview since joining the US club.
His journey thus far, though, is an inspiring one – one that Kaleem hopes will push kids in Pakistan to seriously think about football as a career
Personal Tragedy
Kaleem caught the attention of the football fraternity with a stunning breakthrough season in 2012-13.
Then a rangy young lad with unkempt hair and beard, he plundered 32 goals – the most scored by a player in a 30-match PPFL season.
“Football kept me going. It's more than a way of life for me.” — Photo by Umer Sayyam
His feat was even more remarkable considering the he hadn't found the target in the first nine games of the season.
“I used to play on the left wing in the beginning and it took me a bit of time to adjust as a centre-forward but when that happened, the goals came thick and fast,” Kaleem recollects.
“That was a fantastic season for me.”
That season came two years after Kaleem suffered a huge personal loss – the death of his father in 2010 which followed the sad demise of his mother three years earlier.
“I wasn’t there when my mother passed away and I also missed my father’s funeral because I was in Myanmar at that time [playing in the AFC President’s Cup with KRL],” Kaleem recalls with a heavy voice.
“It was tough for me, really tough. I was 18 and I’d lost both my parents. I wanted to show my parents that I could be a top professional footballer.
“Where I am today is because of their prayers. I miss them a lot but I hope they’re happy up in the heavens when they look down on me.
“Football kept me going all this time. It's more than a way of life for me.”
Kaleem admits that in the beginning, his parents weren’t really supportive of his interest in the sport.
The lack of support stemmed from the fact that not many people at that time thought that there was a future as a footballer – this despite Chaman producing a number of famous players notably former Pakistan captain Mohammad Essa who is Kaleem’s cousin.
“People used to tell me football doesn’t pay that well … that there was no future as a professional footballer,” Kaleem says of the time when he was still a student at the Government High School Chaman.
“They told me I would never make it to the top and as a footballer my future would be limited to Pakistan since by that time none of our local stars had gone abroad to play professionally.
There were no proper academies either where the young aspirant could train to be a professional.
“But I kept going. I used to train alone on a field near our house where I would have a kick-about in the evening.”
“They told me I would never make it to the top.” — Photo by Umer Sayyam
It was during one of those self-training sessions where Kaleem’s potential was first spotted.
“I was training on my own in the field when a couple of individuals from the district team spotted me,” says Kaleem.
“They thought that I had the talent in me and the team signed me up.”
A few sterling performances for the district side piqued the interest of PPFL side Afghan FC Chaman and in 2007, Kaleem was inducted in their youth team, Young Afghan.
A year later, Kaleem was promoted to the senior team.
“This was when my father realised that I had the necessary talent to make it to the top as a footballer,” Kaleem informs.
The biggest realisation, however, came when KRL came calling.
“KRL saw me play for just 20 minutes as a substitute for Afghan FC in a match against them and decided to sign me. It was at the time the biggest day of my life.”
National reckoning
It was KRL manager Ayaz Butt who Kaleem says instilled the belief in him that he could cut it at the top level.
“Ayaz Butt told me he wanted to nurture my talent,” Kaleem says.
“He believed in my abilities.”
In his very first season, he won the double of PPFL and the National Challenge Cup but it was the next year in the country’s premier cup event when he really made his mark.
Top-scorer in the event in Multan, he helped KRL retain their title before Lutfi took over KRL for the 2011-12 season as head-coach.
“Lutfi is the sort of coach who backs his players,” Kaleem says.
“He pushed me to get better and better.”
Another Challenge Cup and PPFL title followed with Kaleem scoring 13 goals in the campaign.
Primarily used as a second-striker who made surging runs from the left, Kaleem was pushing for a place in the centre.
Rizwan Asif, Kaleem’s young teammate at KRL, was thriving as a centre forward before he was struck down with injury at the start of the 2012-13 season.
Kaleemullah (c) celebrates Pakistan's 2-0 win over India in Bangalore. — AP
