Lost Battle or a Victory In Itself? Pakistan stays 1 Goal Short of Olympics 2024

Pakistan Hockey Team went down to 3-2 Against New Zealand in the all important and must win 3rd/4th Place Match for Olympic Qualification. But does the scorecard really show which team outclassed throughout the match? Was it a lost battle or a Victory in itself for Pakistan?

Pakistan started their FIH Olympic Qualification campaign with a defeat against Great Britain by 1-6, In the Second match they defeated China by 2-0 and went on to play a strong and competitive draw against Malaysia by 3-3 to seal their Semi Final Spot. Against the World Champions, Germany, Pakistan failed to make a mark and lost by 0-4 . However, they came back stronger against New-Zealand in 3rd/4th Place match. Pakistan had a dominating position throughout the match and had 1 goal lead before going into the final 10 Minutes of the game. Contrary to our expectations, last 10 minutes proved to be highly unlucky for Pakistan as New Zealand managed to score 2 Goals in last 10 minutes to gain a lead against Pakistan. In the last 2 Minutes of the game, Pakistan again tried to get things equal but few biased decisions of Match Referees caused them the match. What was a clear penalty corner and a visible foul for everyone, was something ignored by the Video Referees.

However, this led to Pakistan missing their third Olympics in a row. But do these players deserve our immense appreciation or criticsm? Is the structure to be blaimed or players?

Just Before the Team flew for Olympic Qualifiers, PHF went through drastic changes in their management setup. The elected President of PHF was removed from his seat and an interim President was appointed. This change further led to changes in the managerial and support staff. Roelant Oltams, Coach of Pakistan Junior and Senior team was sacked from his post just before the announcement of squad for Olympic Qualifiers and Shehnaz Sheikh was appointed as New Head Coach. This caused, a new team to emerge and many players that were a part of Oltmans planned team for the tournament were left behind and were not made part of the selected squad.

In 2023, more then 5 times, the Hockey Federation has seen changes in their coaching and managerial staff. In such an uncertain environment, it makes no sense to expect that these players can defeat world best teams. As the coaching staff with which the team prepared for the tournament was sacked near to it, new coaching staff brought different strategies which could easily be seen in the last quarter against New Zealand. Those who are familiar with Oltamans nature of play, it has always been to keep possession as much as you can, but in the last quarter the team was seen giving aerial balls and clearing the defense rather than attacking.

In such conditions, the players have shown strong commitment and hard work to compete on their own against the leading teams of the world. Pakistan ending up at 4th in a tournament where there were World Champion, Semi Finalists of World Cup and Strong Asian Teams such as China and Malaysia.

Pakistan team, had the youngest members out of all the teams participating. Despite of less experience, the rising talent came forward to deliver strong performance in the tournament. Abu Bakar Mehmood scored 3 Goals followed by 1 Goal each from Ammad Butt ( Captain), Rana Waheed, Sufyan Khan and Hannan Shahid.

Being the young members of the team, Rana Waheed, Sufyan, Arshad Liaqat, Arbaz Ahmed displayed remarkable performance and we expect their performance to further elevate if a stable structure and appropriate resources are provided, which has been a long-standing issue of the organisation since more than last 10 years.

Pakistan Team will next play, FIH Hockey 5's Word Cup scheduled to take place in Oman from 28th January to 31st January 2024.

Published By -

Muhammad Sameer

Sports Blogger