Troops ready to swap guns for boots

Ground staff at Afghanistan's national stadium swept a dusty pitch and sniffer dogs checked for landmines yesterday in preparation for a sell-out match between international troops and a specially picked team called Kabul United.

Tomorrow's match is aimed at developing good relations between the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the football-obsessed Afghan people, who have already snapped up more than 30,000 tickets for the game.

The former Tottenham Hotspur captain Gary Mabbutt flew here earlier this week to train the ISAF squad while the ex-Southampton manager Lawrie McMenemy is preparing the Afghan side. The English Premier League referee Peter Jones will officiate.

The match, which the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) sees as helping ease Afghan football back towards normality, will be played in a stadium that was the scene of some of the worst atrocities of the former Taliban regime, including public executions and lashings.

"We were very aware that when we started playing here you could actually see bullet scorch marks where people had been executed," said the ISAF captain, 29-year-old Jonny Crook.

"There are some horrific stories about people being executed during half-time at matches. Hopefully this normal football match will demonstrate a sea change in the environment of Kabul." The 20-man ISAF squad is made up of 12 British troops, two Frenchmen and soldiers from Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Kabul United have been picked from the best players from teams across the capital for the so-called Game of Unity, which will be watched by the interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.

The Afghanistan Football Association was formed in 1933, joined Fifa in 1948 and was a founder member of the AFC six years later. However Afghan football has taken heavy knocks during 23 years of conflict and standards have slipped since the early 1970s, when the national side boasted victories over Iran, India and Pakistan.

Despite the backing of the fervent crowd for the home team, the ISAF side are favourites to win and lift the Premiership trophy, on loan from the English FA.

"I would hope it's going to be a good match and a fair match," said Jones as he inspected the scrubby grass pitch surrounded by uncovered, stone terraces. "We want to play a part in bringing smiles back to people's faces in Kabul."

McMenemy, who worked with the England team under Graham Taylor, insisted it was time to draw a line under the recent past in Afghanistan

"This stadium was notorious for all the wrong reasons," he said. "It was meant for sport, and this game is a signal for everyone that normality is returning."

Kabul, a city half destroyed by war, has enjoyed a few weeks of relative calm since the six-month interim government led by Karzai came to power in early December. Nearly 4,000 ISAF troops are on patrol in the capital to ensure order after the US air campaign against the Taliban and the guerrilla network of Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in September's attacks in the United States.