The Bayangol team pose in their kits, with the addition of a Chelsea shirt and a mysterious Scotland jersey.
"Ochiroo was approached by a fake agent, who had apparently arranged him a trial or a spot at LA Galaxy in the U.S. He asked Ochiroo for an amount of money to cover some kind of cost and promised to get it back to him once he'd got over there."Obviously he jumped at the opportunity – who wouldn't? Everyone is kind of naive at that age, and if something like that comes up, you're going to jump at it without doing much research first, unfortunately.""Ochiroo's family took out a loan for the amount of money that he needed and, obviously, the agent was found out to be a fake, and Ochiroo was scammed out of this money. The family were in danger of becoming homeless at that point – the loan had been a substantial amount for them."READ MORE: Meet the Man Who Wants to Take Mongolia to the Cricket World Cup
"So I believe that Paul went on talkSPORT last year to talk about it and a lot people from the UK donated to repay the money the family had lost. They were saved from becoming homeless."Ochiroo lived in a yurt in the poorest area of town, a massive Man U fan and nicknamed himself Wazza after Rooney. pic.twitter.com/gK9PIxTlOc
— Paul Watson (@paul_c_watson) July 12, 2016
By now you might be wondering what the Mongolian Premier League is like: "There're no youth systems over there; there's only a few stadiums. The national team suffers because there's no real indoor training facilities, so there's nowhere to train during the winter – and it gets to minus 30 in Mongolia in the winter, maybe minus 40.And so Ganbaa, a kid from a border town near Russia, wore the shirt of Barnet U-16s for a month. pic.twitter.com/ebloKrDxI1
— Paul Watson (@paul_c_watson) July 19, 2016
So how did Bayangol break into the Mongolian Premier League despite not having major financial backing? It's a story that feels a world away from the English game."We had come in third last year, in the second league in Mongolia, and we lost in a play-off to the eighth-placed team [in the top-tier] by one away goal. Both games were played in the same stadium – so go figure that!" he laughs."One of the teams that had been promoted, Continental FC – who I think are owned by Continental tyre company – declined their promotion, I think because of financial reasons. Since we were the next team up, we were offered promotion around 10 days before the season was supposed to start. We were basically told that, if we didn't accept promotion, we would be disbanded."Accept promotion or your team will be disbanded – welcome to Mongolian football.
Bayangol train on a rival team's pitch – where they must cope with less than perfect air quality.
Where do you find an available coach like that in Mongolia? Paul and Jimmy, full of hope, turned to Twitter."Paul, Enki [Batsumber the club's Mongolia owner] and I put outs tweets saying, 'Anybody looking for a managerial position in the Mongolian Premier League? Send us your CV.'"Surprisingly, we actually received a tonne of CVs – a lot of which were young kids just trying to live their dream, or Football Manager players, or whatever the case might be!"But one, from a guy called Shadab Iftikhar, stood out. He had coached in non-league a lot; he had helped a team called Hesketh Bank AFC avoid relegation. He had even done some scouting for Roberto Martinez, with Wigan and Everton, and they'd become friends. He contacts him every now and then to see how things are going. And Shadab has a UEFA A licence. We were shocked that someone like that would be applying for a position like ours."READ MORE: Murder, Corruption and the Demise of a Chinese Football Giant
Thanks to Twitter, Bayangol had a qualified coach and could take up their place in the Premier League. They're now seven games into the 2016 season, though unfortunately their record currently reads five defeats and two draws. Nevertheless, Jimmy is confident that the club can turn their season around and avoid relegation when the campaign ends in mid-October.It's a tall order, but that's the sort of belief required to lead an unlikely group of players into the Mongolian Premier League. Given the work they've done thus far, you can be sure of a positive reaction from fans across the globe if they can beat the drop.@lucasfothergillBayangol are crowdfunding to raise funds for the remainder of the season – they're targeting £3,000 to help them through the final 11 games, with £1,200 raised at the time of writing. If you would like to help them, please join this writer in donating whatever you can here.We unveiled him. He didn't pull an unveiling face. This was a true pro. And the most qualified coach in Mongolia. pic.twitter.com/1Nj5qMiOdR
— Paul Watson (@paul_c_watson) July 19, 2016