Can Van Den Heuvel and Hanif Khan take Pakistan hockey out of the slums
Hockey, as a sport in Pakistan, has been at a major downfall. Being the country’s national sport one would expect it to thrive, but instead the exact opposite is taking place. Hockey used to attract thousands of Pakistani fans but now people have lost interest in the sport. Noticing the present condition of the sport in Pakistan, it seems like even the team has lost interest in winning.
The Pakistani hockey team has won the hockey World Cup four times in 1971, 1978, 1982 and 1994, and they have been Olympic gold medallists three times in the years 1960, 1968 and 1984. It is therefore disheartening to learn that the team has not won any major championship title since the World Cup in Australia in 1994. What’s even worse is that recently, in the 12-nation World Cup held in February-March in India, Pakistan not only lost, but was ranked at the bottom. This has been the team’s worst performance ever recorded in the history of Pakistani hockey.
It is high time that the nation paid more attention to the game of hockey in Pakistan and put an end to its deterioration. The glorious past of Men’s hockey in Pakistan should be revived. For this, the source of the problem must be solved - and the source of a good team is its coach. The key to producing excellent players is to have a well-trained coach to train them and mould them into champions. Perhaps the major cause of the downfall of the Pakistani hockey team has been the lack of professional coaches, who have not been able to make the team attain their maximum capabilities.
Recently this year, the Pakistan Hockey Federation has appointed a three member coaches panel for the Pakistani hockey team. This concept has been adopted from Europe in which the team has two to three coaches who provide professional training to the team. One of the three members of this panel is Hanif Khan, who was in his time one of the best Pakistani hockey players. Also, the training techniques of the west are trying to be implemented for the team to improve their game. These recent improvements show some signs of progress for professional hockey in Pakistan. However, a lot of work needs to be done by the coaches in order to make the team ready to play a respectable game. After their loss in the World Cup 2010 in India, they have been a subject to embarrassment in the media for a pathetic performance against the Indian team. The team was also accused of having no coordination among each other and it is the first rule of a team that all the players should work together. Hence, this proves that the Pakistani Hockey team needs to work on improving itself – starting from the basis.
The coaches have identified the problems faced by the team and have also acknowledged them. After the poor performances in the World Cup 2010 the coach Shahid Ali Khan, who was considered responsible, was sacked along with some other high level personnel. The Pakistan Hockey Federation then started the hunt for a foreign coach in order to train the team. The Dutchman, Van Den Heuvel was requested to take up this position. He accepted this offer just last week and he claims to have big plans for the team. Heuvel wants to revive hockey in Pakistan and make it attain the heights it had reached in the past. This is the kind of enthusiasm that is needed by Pakistani hockey team at this point; as this is the point at which the moral of the Pakistani hockey players is at its lowest and a professional and ambitious coach is what can be the key to their revival. It will not be an easy task to bring the team back to the top, but it is being hoped that all the hard work that is being done to achieve this will indeed give desired results.
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