Fri, Apr 12, 2019 page16

• Burmese teenage soccer champion defies the odds

  • AFP, YANGON, Myanmar
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  Soccer-obsessed Burmese teen Kaung Khant Lin roots for Manchester United, worships star Lionel Messi and was honored as the best player in a tournament.

  However, the 16-year-old expertly navigates the pitch with just one leg and a crutch, the only disabled player on his team.

  “Whenever I play football, I forget about my legs and I play as a normal person,” he said after celebrating his goal with teammates.

  

  Kaung Khant Lin, right, fights for the ball during a soccer match in Yangon, Myanmar, on Tuesday last week.

  Photo: AFP

  On sandy ground in the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, he dribbled a ball with incredible agility, pivoting expertly on the crutch before shooting to score with his left foot.

  Kaung Khant Lin was born with a stump for a right leg that today protrudes from his soccer shorts.

  He remembers first kicking a ball around the streets when he was five, keeping his balance on a wooden crutch crafted by his uncle.

  Now he sees himself as pretty versatile on the pitch and does not see his disability as his main weakness.

  “Nobody can get past me, but it’s hard for me to defend against free-kicks as I’m short,” he said.

  Nearly one in 50 people in Myanmar has some form of walking disability, according to the nation’s latest census in 2014.

  Unlike Kaung Khant Lin, many are survivors of land mines planted in the conflicts plaguing the nation’s restive borderlands.

  People with disabilities face huge discrimination and 85 percent are unemployed, said Thin Thin Htet, program manager at Shwe Minn Tha Foundation (Myanmar).

  “Most people think that those with disabilities cannot work,” she said.

  Kaung Khant Lin has so far defied the odds, even rising to local fame in a soccer tournament on Independence Day, a public holiday in January, when communities compete in team games.

  His two goals helped propel his side to victory and also clinched his award of “Player of the Tournament.”

  Teammate Moe Sat Han, 14, said they used to worry about their friend’s leg getting broken, but there was no way they could stop him playing.

  They often play the whole day from morning until night, even forgetting to eat, and that is when “his Dad gives him a huge telling off,” Moe Sat Han said.

  Kaung Khant Lin’s father, a 41-year-old painter and decorator, said he cannot even bring himself to watch his son play.

  “I don’t want to see him get injured in front of me,” Soe Min Htun said, adding that he just wants his son to go to university.

  Kaung Khant Lin is working hard at school in the hope of studying mechanical engineering — even if he dreams of becoming a soccer coach one day.

  However, in the meantime, he will keep trying to emulate his hero: Messi.

  “He’s left-handed and I am too,” he said. “I practice free-kicks just like he does.”
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