Under the floodlights, she aims not for the goal, but for the moon itself. Each strike lifts her higher, until the stadium dissolves into stars, and gravity finally learns her name. Her name was Princess Shahlyla Ahmadzai Baloch, the girl who made Pakistan believe that women could fly.
Roots of Rebellion
Born on 12 March 1996 in Quetta, Balochistan, Shahlyla’s childhood was shaped by dust, determination, and defiance. Her family carried the weight of two worlds: politics and football. Her mother, Rubina Irfan, chaired the Pakistan Football Federation’s Women’s Wing; her sister, Raheela Zarmeen, managed the national women’s team and Balochistan United FC. But Shahlyla’s dream was her own. Football was not a family heirloom; it was her rebellion.
While most girls her age were told to stay indoors, Shahlyla ran barefoot across Quetta’s uneven grounds, chasing a ball that became her universe. The local boys mocked her at first. Then they stopped, because she could outplay them. Day after day, she practiced until her lungs burned and her legs ached, her eyes fixed not on applause, but on perfection. She wasn’t training to be good “for a girl.” She was training to be great, period.
Rising Star Princess Shahlyla
By her teens, she had joined Balochistan United FC, a club her family built to give girls a chance the system never would. Her rise was meteoric. Coaches called her the striker with fire in her feet, quick, fearless, impossible to mark. She had the instincts of a hunter and the grace of an artist. In Pakistan’s fractured football ecosystem, plagued by mismanagement and neglect, Shahlyla was a burst of light that refused to fade.
Then came the moment that would etch her name in history. Playing for Sun Hotels and Resorts FC in the Maldives, Shahlyla became the first Pakistani woman to score a hat-trick in an international club match. It wasn’t just a personal victory; it was a declaration. Headlines in Dawn, The Express Tribune, and Geo Sports hailed her as a trailblazer. For the first time, Pakistan’s football narrative, long dominated by men, made space for a woman who refused to be invisible.
But for all her brilliance, Shahlyla was running uphill. Pakistan’s football federation was in constant chaos, suspended multiple times by FIFA for internal disputes. International fixtures dried up; funding disappeared. She often practiced with no matches in sight, knowing that talent alone could not fight bureaucracy. Yet, she never complained. “I just want the world to know Pakistan through football,” she told a journalist once. “Not just cricket.”
The Night the Lights Went Out
And then, as suddenly as she had risen, she was gone. On 12 October 2016, in Karachi, the car she was in lost control and crashed near DHA Phase VIII. She was thrown from the vehicle and died instantly. She was twenty years old. The news shattered Pakistan’s sports community. Social media was flooded with disbelief; teammates broke down on live television. FIFA extended condolences.
Black armbands appeared on the arms of players she had inspired. In Quetta, girls wept quietly on the same fields where she had once taught them to kick without fear. Her death felt larger than an accident; it felt like the silencing of momentum. She had been the living proof that Pakistani women could not only play, but lead, score, and dream on an international stage. Her absence left a void that statistics could never fill.
A Legacy Written in Sky
In the years that followed, the Balochistan Football Association renamed a local tournament in her honor. Her posters still hang in dusty training camps. Young players whisper her name before stepping onto the pitch, as if invoking a spirit that still runs beside them. Because Shahlyla didn’t just chase football, she chased transcendence. Her story is a mirror held up to Pakistan’s sports system: full of passion, promise, and loss.
She showed what was possible when talent met opportunity, and what was lost when it didn’t. Today, when a young girl in Quetta ties her laces and looks at the open sky, she remembers the one who kicked higher than anyone thought possible. The girl who didn’t aim for the goal. She aimed for the moon, and for one brief, brilliant moment, she reached it.
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