After Isolation, Afghan Football Seeks Support.

(From Korea Times)

BUSAN _ ``Could you please help us find a foreign coach?'' asked 18-year-old Afghan footballer Mohammad Khalid Saturday night as he sat in the Gudeok Stadium after his team's 10-0 loss to Iran.

Following Afghanistan's opening match of the 2002 Asian Games _ its first football international in nearly two decades _ Khalid and his teammates were watching Kuwait's footballers cruise to a 6-0 victory over Pakistan.

``Things are good for them,'' said Khalid, gesturing toward the players from the oil-rich Gulf monarchy. ``They have money. They have no civil wars. They can play football.''

After 24 years of violent internal struggle starting with Soviet occupation, ending with bombardment by U.S.-led coalition forces, and passing through guerrilla warfare, civil war, and Taliban rule, Afghanistan is now beginning to mend broken ties _ sporting and otherwise _ with the rest of the world.

``Under the Taliban we had to play in long trousers and grow long beards,'' said Basher Ahmad Sahadat, 23, a father, civil engineer, and starting player in the match versus Iran. ``But we played a lot of football because we didn't have any jobs.''

Before the Taliban's removal from power last year, Khalid said he and his friends would watch football on a hidden television in the basement of his Kabul home. This past summer, he was able to watch World Cup matches _ including South Korea's _ from in shops and restaurants on the streets of Afghanistan's capital city.