Dutch professional footballers can be found in all corners of the world, from the spotlights of the major European leagues to the more adventurous jobs on other continents. In the Over de Grens section, Voetbalzone speaks weekly with a player who is active outside the national borders. This time with attention to Omid Popalzay, the Afghan international who decided to embark on a special adventure in Bangladesh last month.
By Chris Meijer
“Yeah, I’m going to go to bed in a moment,” Omid Popalzay says just before hanging up. In Bangladesh the time is now creeping towards midnight and about six hours later he is expected back on the training field. “I have not seen that before, there is training here three times a day. We start at six in the morning. Yes, yes, that’s pretty early. But if you train here for a month, you’re pretty fit.” His club Chittagong Abahani currently has a training camp at the sports complex of the University of Dhaka. Two cup tournaments will be played before the start of the Bangladesh Premier League. “The first one did not yield the desired result, so it was decided to go to a training camp. According to the club, too many players were not fit enough.”
An adventure in Bangladesh: for Dutch standards it is an extremely special step. “It was also a special step for me, but we did it anyway”, Popalzay responds with a smile. The 25-year-old attacking midfielder played in the Netherlands for NEC, Achilles’29 and FC Lienden, before embarking on his first foreign adventure in 2019 with the Australian Adelaide Comets. “I had a good time in Australia, but that was not what I wanted to leave everything for in the Netherlands. It was a special experience, but for my family, wife and friends I went back. I thought maybe it wasn’t for me to be active in professional football.” Popalzay actually wanted to focus on a social career, until he received an offer from Poland a year and a half ago.
Popalzay said he personally had a good season, but at the same time could not prevent Olimpia Grudziadz from being relegated from the third tier of Polish football. “That made it a kind of amateur club, so I didn’t want to stay.” There were certainly opportunities in Europe last summer, for example at the second level of Poland or in the Italian Serie C. But Olimpia Grudziadz kept him to his permanent contract and demanded a transfer fee from interested clubs. “As a result, two or three good transfers have been missed. I ended up hiring a lawyer to get rid of my contract. But that took so long, all the competitions had already started when that was completed. If I could connect anywhere at a nice level, it was on an amateur basis.”
One road that was still open at that time was the one towards Asia. Popalzay has been an international for Afghanistan since 2015, his native country that he fled with his family at the age of five. Earlier there were already offers from India and Thailand, but in the words of Popalzay they were not interesting enough. After giving Afghanistan a 1-0 win against Indonesia in November, two offers came in from the Indonesian league. The problem: a rule in Indonesia states that you can only play there if you’ve played at a first or second level somewhere. And Popalzay had last been active in Poland’s third tier. “After that an agent came and told me that they were looking for a number ten here in Bangladesh.”
‘I dreamed of the Champions League, but now of the Asian Cup with Afghanistan’
Popalzay has been an Afghanistan international since 2015, something he calls “always special.” But after all the events in the country last summer, in his words it is now even more special to play for Afghanistan. “Everyone knows that the situation in Afghanistan has been very dire in recent months. People still keep following the national team. A win from us really brings joy, that they forget everything for a while. Only because we win a game.”
“At the moment you’re just doing everything you can to make sure those people can be happy for a moment. Everything is double, different than it used to be. That is much more alive within the team,” says the eighteen-time international. “It is difficult, we hope that the situation will be clear as soon as possible. Every Afghan wants peace in the country and to be able to live normally. For the past forty years there has only been war and every time we have to start from scratch, that is also the case now. It is precisely because of this ambiguity that everyone has a huge fear. Luckily my family left at the right time.”
Afghanistan hopes to qualify for the Asian Cup for the first time in history in June 2022, which will be played in China a year later. “We have quite a strong team, with a lot of guys who play in Europe. We now have the chance to make it to the Asian Cup, that would be history for Afghanistan. A lot of guys have the dream of playing the Champions League and I had that too, but now I dream of playing the Asian Cup with Afghanistan.”
Popalzay was not immediately convinced. With the national team of Afghanistan he has seen the necessary places in Asia: Singapore, Oman, Tajikistan, India, Iran, Japan, Lebanon, Jordan, Cambodia, Vietnam. But Bangladesh was still missing from that list, despite the fact that he has already played against the national team twice. “But my team-mates from Afghanistan had been here before, so I asked what to expect, ‘Omid, you’re going to have a really hard time,’ I was told.” After consultation with his wife and family, Popalzay decided to take up the challenge. “Bangladesh is not really a country to live in for a few months. On the other hand, it is a life experience, you take that with you in your backpack. I don’t have to stay here forever. And I have to say it’s not bad financially, I didn’t think they were willing to pay for this here. So that made me decide to come here.”
“The main reason I’m here is the financial aspect. The offer convinced me to give it a shot. And how long did I want to try it in Europe? Always on the second, third or fourth level, how much longer do you want to play there? Life in Europe is also more expensive, so you only have half of your salary left,” Popalzay admits frankly. Still, especially in the first days, it took some getting used to life in Bangladesh. “It just doesn’t work the way we’re used to. The Netherlands is one of the best organized countries in the world, there is nothing to complain about. If you come from the Netherlands to Bangladesh, the step is super, super, super big. Mentally it is quite heavy. Because what I see here… The standard is just lower. Much lower.”
‘When we were there I thought I was David Beckham: so many cameras’
Voetbalzone previously spoke with Omid Popalzay when he played in Australia, including about his international career for Afghanistan.
Despite his club’s origins in Chittagong – Bangladesh’s second largest city in the southeast of the country – Popalzay lives in Dhaka, as all league matches are played in the capital. “It is difficult to travel around here, because there are no domestic flights. So you will always have to take the bus and that in itself is not a disaster, because then you leave two or three days in advance for an away game. But that is impossible with the crowds here, then you are on the road for so long,” he explains. “Do you know how many inhabitants Dhaka has?” Popalzay falls silent and then answers himself: almost nine million, making Dhaka the fourth most populous city in the world. “Look, that’s ridiculously high.”
“If you have to be three kilometers away and you don’t want to walk, you have to take a taxi. They call it a rickshaw here. But then you’re just on the road for an hour and a quarter. Purely because it is so busy, so overcrowded. Nobody takes each other into account. Everyone does what is best for themselves. So if they have to step over you, they will. First come, first served. They shit on you.” The crowds aren’t what Popalzay has had to get used to the most. “No, the worst is the hygiene here. The supermarkets, the restaurants: everything is so unhygienic. It’s just not clean. Wherever you go, you won’t find a clean place to get your food anywhere. This also applies to the houses and accommodations, for example the shower and the gas stove. The roads are not right either, they are made of sand. So when it rains, all of Bangladesh is covered in mud.”
“You can just see a chicken being slaughtered next to you on the street. That’s just normal here. On the other side are eight stray dogs. Yes, I’m a little scared of dogs. So it doesn’t make me happy when they come barking at me.” He interrupts the conversation for a moment and continues: “I happen to see one walking around now. When you are here, you really appreciate life in the Netherlands. A lot of people don’t realize how good we have it, that is seen as normal. Millions of people here just work hard to survive the day, to put bread on the table for the family. They worry about getting bread. While we in the Netherlands are concerned because an Instagram post has received few likes, I’m just saying. That makes you look at life differently.” Popalzay calls the moments when he can stand on the field ‘redeeming’.
“I really enjoy it in football. Everything is very well and professionally arranged. They do their best to make everything work.” Popalzay is particularly pleased with the level of the Bangladesh Premier League, which houses the necessary foreign players. “Brazilians, Portuguese, Nigerians, South Africans,” Popalzay sums up. “These are guys who have played at a good level. The local players generally have quite a good level, but tactically they lag far behind. But because of the four foreigners in the teams, the level goes up.” In Bangladesh, football is generally played in stadiums where cricket matches are also played. “They are all large stadiums, the minimum capacity is generally 25,000 people. It’s always quite busy, so I’m curious how it goes in the competition. At the tournament that we have already played, there were also 15,000 people in the stands. Cricket used to be number one, but football has certainly evolved. A few years ago nobody talked about football here. When I get out of here, people want to have their picture taken with me. They want to know what I do and where I come from: they are very curious, it is really alive.”
Popalzay is currently recovering from a knee injury, but hopes to be in the spotlight in Bangladesh next year for the next step in Asia. “I hope to stay in Asia in the coming years and to be able to make the step to Indonesia or Malaysia. You never know what the future will bring. If there is a nice offer from Europe at a decent level, I will also consider that. In any case, this is not my final destination.” What will help Popalzay is that soon at least he won’t be alone in Bangladesh. “My wife is coming this way soon, so it will get easier. Then we can go do fun things. Or well, I have yet to see if there are a lot of fun things to do here.”