In spite of great talent and zeal of the public for the game of football Pakistan are yet to show their mark in the sport even at the South Asian level.

There are several reasons behind the downward trend of Pakistan football but the most vital of them is the lack of consistency from the authorities to keep the team under the wings of an experienced foreign coach for a sufficient period of time.

Football experts in Pakistan and those at the helm of affairs of the sport in the country have also realised that a foreign coach should be given enough time so that he could form a strong base besides improving the national team's performance at international circuit. Unlike in cricket, Pakistan do not have good homegrown coaches in football who could transform the national team into a fighting unit. Those who are currently working in one capacity or the other are in reality not competent enough to prove as world class coaches in future as most of them are even unable to improve the standard of their respective departments where they are delivering their services at the domestic level.

If we recall, few seasons back, Bahraini coach Salman Ahmad Sharida had almost changed Pakistan side and even at the 15th Asian Games held in Doha, Qatar in 2006, Pakistan had played tough games with teams like Korea, Japan and Syria. But after he severed ties with the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) soon after the Asian Games the team fell in the hands of the homegrown coaches and now everybody has seen that Pakistan even could not beat Bangladesh's Arambagh KS football club during the Prime Minister's Cup match in Nepal on March 8. The coach was Austrian George Kottan but he could not be blamed for the defeat because he had just joined the team and it were other coaches who had turned the national side into a useless force due to their lack of knowledge and expertise.

Last year, Pakistan crashed out of the Asian Football Challenge Cup Qualifiers held in Chinese Taipei in April and then the Greenshirts were shown the exit door after losing all their three matches against Maldives, Nepal and India in the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship jointly hosted by the Maldives and Sri Lanka in June.

The SAFF Championship fiasco prompted the PFF to sack the then coach Akhtar Mohiuddin and the authorities were now convinced that only a foreign coach could lift the standard of the team at international level.

After a patient struggle, eventually in late February this year the authorities hired one such coach in the form of the 62-year old Kottan.

Kottan had also a glorious brief stint with the Bangladesh football team in 2002-03 and the man became unforgettable for the Bangladeshi public after he helped their national team to at least win the SAFF Championship in their own backyard in early 2003. Most of the Pakistan team boys who had played in that SAFF Cup know Kottan's caliber.

Under Kottan, Pakistan featured in the Prime Minister's Cup in Nepal held from March 5 to 15 and now the aging yet very active man is busy shaping the side for the Asian Football Confederation Challenge Cup Qualifiers to be held in Sri Lanka early next month.

The coach is currently facing great problems in the formation of the team. He is not sure about the available talent and whether it would be the best available talent that Pakistan have, or there might be some players in the background who could prove to be future assets for the country. He is of the view that his real work would start after the AFC Challenge Cup Qualifiers in Sri Lanka early next month as he will start sniffing for talent during an exciting domestic tournament to be played under the banner of National Challenge Cup in Hyderabad from April 15 to 28 and then in the Premier League starting early May.

I personally endorse Kottan's views that Pakistan might have talent in the background. But I would suggest to the Austrian gentleman that he should not focus only on hunting boys from the National Challenge Cup and the Premier League but should also manage to holding special talent-hunt clinics in areas like here in Lyari (where Brazilian-style footballers might be picked), Lahore, Islamabad, Chaman, Peshawar and Mardan where I believe Kottan would get more talent.

His previous record with the Bangladesh team and his seriousness show that the Vienna-born Kottan has the ability to transform Pakistan into a good side provided he is given free hand by the authorities. The PFF is of the opinion that the coach has been given full authority in handling the affairs of the team. But there might be some elements closed to the coach who may try to deceive him at every step in a bid to prove him as a failed coach. But the coach should be careful to counter all such attempts of sabotaging his performance during his association with the Pakistan team.

Moreover, for better results the coach will need sufficient time and a year or two would not be enough to produce desired results. Because he has to change the whole psychology of the players as they have not been properly trained or rather ill-advised by the inexperienced local coaches in the past. Currently, in reality, he is imparting training to the most experienced side of Pakistan. Surprisingly, he is not satisfied with the techniques of even the key players in the team.

Kottan said that when he joined the team in Lahore a month ago he noticed that most of the players were even not aware of their positions on the field. But slowly and gradually they have started learning and he is optimistic now that the team will grow better in the coming months. But he insists that he needs more time and a year is not sufficient to prove himself as a good coach.

Kottan is right. If he is able to bring improvement in the side, the PFF must extend his tenure because it is very important for achieving desired results.

Apart from handling the national team's affairs, Kottan is determined to try his hand in the Youth Development Programme on which millions of rupees are being spent every year.

'I will visit different centres of the youth development programme and will closely observe the working of the coaches and will then try to form a strategy for bringing improvement in the programmes,' Kottan stressed.

It clearly shows the dominance and power of the 'top four' of the English Premier League -- Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. This year Italy had to pay the price for England's inevitable representation in the quarter-finals as three Italian teams Inter Milan, AS Roma and Juventus were swept aside in the pre-quarter-finals by their English rivals United, Arsenal and Chelsea respectively.

Other major casualty was Spain's Real Madrid who lost to a resurgent Liverpool side that has picked up momentum at the right time. However, unlike Italy, Spain still has one team remaining in the competition -- the mighty Barcelona.

In the quarter-finals, defending champions, Manchester United, will be playing FC Porto, the team they lost to in the year 2004. Porto went on to lift the trophy that year under their charismatic manager Jose Mourinho. Manchester United fans would be eagerly waiting to avenge that defeat five years ago.

FC Porto, however, can never be underestimated. They have that desire to win and the ability to cause major upsets and United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who manages perhaps the best squad in the world, would be well aware of this threat. Football pundits across the world rate Manchester United as the favourite to go through to the semifinals, but, Porto has done it before and it won't be a surprise if they do it again by beating United. Manchester United are home to the current World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo. With the likes of Rooney, Berbatov, Tevez, Giggs and Carrick around him Ronaldo can unleash hell on his countrymen.

The winner of this tie will face Villarreal or Arsenal. Arsenal will be up against one of their old boys Robert Pires who plays for Villarreal these days. Arsenal have had an unusual season. They never looked like challenging Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea for the domestic league, but, some how they managed to make it all the way to the last eight of the lucrative Champions League. The two teams have faced each other in the semifinals a couple of years back with Arsenal emerging as winners. This time around however, it is a different story with the likes of Rossi up front Villarreal pose a massive threat to Arsenal's fairytale.

The most eye-catching clash in the quarter-finals would arguably be between Chelsea and Liverpool. Liverpool have been one of the best teams in Europe under Rafa Benitez while, Russian revolution is still going strong at Chelsea. Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich's unending hunger of lifting the prestigious Champions League trophy makes this a mouth-watering tie.

Under Guus Hiddink Chelsea have played attractive football and they look stronger than ever before. While, Liverpool are flying high after beating arch-rivals Manchester United in the Premier League. Liverpool have one of the best central midfielders in the world in their captain Steven Gerrard and with Fernando Torres up front, they have a lethal combination.

Football legend Zinedine Zidane rates Steven Gerrard even higher than Cristiano Ronaldo, he believes Gerrard is the 'perfect' player.

On the other hand Chelsea have one of the strongest midfields in the world. With Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Michael Essien, Deco and Mikel in the team Chelsea have got little to fear, even if their opponents are as strong as Liverpool is. Their front man Didier Drogba has also seemingly rediscovered his form after the departure of Luiz Felipe Scolari. Drogba is scoring goals at will and it would be a thrilling contest with Torres at one end and Drogba at the other.

Talking of stars, there is perhaps none who could beat Barcelona's Lionel Messi right now. Regarded by many as the best player in the world, an opinion shared by his national coach Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi is a genius on a football pitch. His skill is unprecedented and his trickery is second to none and since the departure of Ronaldinho, Messi has become the undisputed favourite of Barcelona faithful.

It's very difficult to mark him, and even if a manager commits more than one player on Messi it leaves either one of Samuel Eto'o and Thierry Henry unmarked, which is suicidal. Barcelona's opponent in the quarter-finals are Germany's Bayern Munich and in Franck Ribery Bayern have their own Messi.

Ribery is a player of the highest quality and he showed his class in the pre-quarter-finals stage when he, with the help of Luca Toni and Miroslav Klose, slaughtered Sporting Lisbon.

For a true football fan it's a real treat to watch some of the best footballing talent go head to head when the quarter-final stage kicks-off in a fortnight time. The first legs will be played on the 7th and 8th of April while the return leg will be played on the 14th and 15th of the same month.

The ball hits the batsman's pads and the bowler thinks he has trapped the batsman, he appeals to the umpire, and appeals and appeals again... and when he is almost disappointed, the umpire shakes his head, smiles and raises his finger... in his inimitable style. This is world cricket's most popular umpire, none other than Stephen Anthony Bucknor, popularly known as Steve Bucknor.

Bucknor supervised his last Test between Australia and South Africa last week and today's 4th one-day international between West Indies and England at Bridgetown will be the last international match for umpire Steve Bucknor.

Bucknor, who turns 63 in May, thinks that 63 would have been a good age to hangs his boot, so it was the age factor instead of performance which forced him to say good-bye to his remarkable umpiring career.

He supervised a world record 128 Tests while his today's ODI will be his 181st One-day International as an umpire.

The Jamaican made his international debut as an umpire in 1989 when he took charge of the One-day International between the West Indies and India at the Antigua Recreation Ground on March 18. While he made his Test umpiring debut just after one month when West Indies and India faced off in Kingston. Bucknor also has a unique record to supervise five consecutive ICC World Cup finals since 1992.

Four years back in 2005 before the start of the first day's play of the second Test between Pakistan and India at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, around 30,000 cricket fans present in the ground gave the Jamaican umpire a standing ovation for becoming the first umpire in cricket history to stand in 100 Test matches.

Steve Bucknor was presented with a silver plaque on behalf of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) before play started. He also received the Golden Bails award from International Cricket Council (ICC) president Ehsan Mani on the fourth day of the Test.

Umpiring is one of the toughest tasks in international cricket since the batsmen are never satisfied with the umpire's decision when he declares them out, particularly lbw. But Bucknor's decisions do not give much chance to the players for any objections.

Television commentators will watch slow-motion replays from several angles, often several times, before pronouncing judgment on an umpire who had a single view from a distance of more than 22 yards and had a few seconds in which to make the call. It takes clarity of vision and thought, qualities that in Bucknor are reflected by his refusal to be hurried into making decisions.

Known for his lengthy deliberation before reprieving batsmen or raising the finger, Steve Bucknor has been nicknamed 'Slow Death Bucknor'.

The 6'3" tall Jamacian is also a sports columnist and was a former international football referee from 1985-92. He has the distinction of officiating the El Salvador v Netherlands Soccer World Cup match as well.

The ICC's system of Elite Panel Umpires and Referees came into effect in April 2002. Elite Panel umpires now stand at both ends in all Test matches and there will be one member standing with a home umpire for all One-day Internationals. Bucknor was included in the Elite Panel without any debate.

In spite of having an experience of only four Tests and the same number of One-day Internationals, he was nominated to supervise the World Cup 1992 final between Pakistan and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Later, he went on to emulate the celebrated Englishman Dickie Bird's record of standing in three successive finals. He was also chosen with England's David Shepherd for Bangladesh's inaugural Test against India.

Recalling his experience with different captains, Bucknor once rated Australia's Steve Waugh as the toughest. Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly is also tough, but Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul Haq is easy to handle as skipper on the field, he is one of them who doesn't do much and doesn't say much.

Regarding his favourite umpire, Bucknor praises England's veteran umpire David Shepherd his favourite and he has worked with him more than with anyone else.

According to Bucknor the biggest change in umpiring over his career is the greater scrutiny of decision-making by television analysis. He thinks standards of umpiring are higher than they've ever been but "we're also under greater pressure and scrutiny than before," he said.

"There's more pressure to make more decisions on things like lbws... where television replays can show a ball hitting the top of a stump. We all make mistakes and I have too. As human beings, we will make errors but we can only go on our instincts as umpires."

Now the spectators will not see Bucknor in the ground as an umpire, but his unique smiling decision style must be remember to his fans for a long time. Good-bye Bucknor