Greenshirts are confident to end their European tour on a winning-note
Pakistan national hockey side is aiming to conclude their European campaign with victory over the Dutch national hockey side in their last two matches of the tour.
“We have been holding some tough training sessions and the boys are now fully ready to face the Dutch in the upcoming games.” former Olympian Khawaja Junaid, the national hockey team manager, stated.
“The boys are responding well to training. They are improving with each game and that’s a good sign. Netherlands are among the world’s top teams and a good showing against them in their own backyard will give our players a lot of confidence. That is why we
are attaching a lot of importance to this series.” he further added about the team’s preparation prior to the matches against Netherlands.
The European tour is the part of the preparation for next year’s Olympics Games, an event in which Pakistan, who is the current Asian Games Champions have won three gold medals, but their last their gold medal in 1984 in Los Angeles.
In their European tour the Greenshirts have won the Four-Nation tournament in Dublin, Ireland, which featured France, China and hosts Ireland, while they remained at the last place in another Rabo Four-Nation event in Amsterdam, Netherlands where they competed
with England, Germany and hosts, the Dutch. The national squad defeated New Zealand in a Test match and the two Test match series against Belgium ended in a draw.
Meanwhile, the national junior hockey teams’ training camp is going to start from July 20 at National Hockey Stadium in Lahore, for the preparation of the upcoming five Test match series against the Egyptian juniors, which will be played from August 6 to
12 in Egypt.
The following players will be a part of the training camp:
Bilal Qadir, Khurram Shahzad, Ali Shan, Hassan Mansoor, Mazhar Abbas, Mohammad Safian, Wasim Abbas, Mohammad Adnan Anwar, Aleem Bilal, Khalid Bhatti, Usman Tanvir, Hafiz Rizwan Ali, Asad Bashir, Arslan Qadir, Mohammad Irfan, Sultan Aamir, Mohammad Sohaib,
Ahmed Zubair, Mohammad Bilal Khan, Zohaib Ashraf, Mohammad Suleman, Mohammad Umair, Abdul Zohaib Khan, Mohammad Dilber, Mushtaq, Kashif Javed, Rizwan Junior, Usman Rafique, Umar Bhutta and Abdul Karim.
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