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| October 6, 2001 | Saturday | Rajab 18, 1422 |
Atif blames PHF for downward slide
LAHORE, Oct 5: Former Olympian Brig. Manzoor Hussain Atif Friday blamed the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) for the country’s continued downward slide as it failed to find replacements for ageing stars.
“The latest example of PHF’s inability to groom replacements is the recall of Shahbaz Ahmad Senior instead of continuing him as national coach” declared the FIH hockey rules board chairman while addressing “Meet The Press” programme late Thursday night.
Atif was critical of the panel of coaches of the national team and claimed that they had little or no knowledge of the coaching and advised the the management of PHF to forget victory in the Champions Trophy (Holland, Nov 3 to 11) and World Cup (Malaysia next year) and instead make concerted efforts to build up a team for the next world Cup and Athens’s Olympics from right now.
He said that Shahbaz Ahmad Senior’s inclusion made it clear that no long term planning was in the offing which resulted in induction of a player had past his prime. “The current Pakistan team lacks a quality right-wing player which is considered to be main goal scoring source. Similarly, the team lacked in genuine goal scorers” he claimed.
Atif claimed that Sohail Abbas should learn the basics of defending because he was the weakest defender but believed that none of coaches dare tell Sohail Abbas to learn hockey as they had no knowledge of coaching.
Critical of the panel of coaches, said that they should have quit voluntarily after their strategy of improving the defence area totally flopped in the Azlan Shah tournament in Malaysia as the team conceded 25 goals against 23 they scored.
He urged that Pakistan must return back to adopting the Asian style of hockey as it was the only way to counter against the European strategy and cited that the Pakistan Junior’s defeat at the hands of Chinese Provincial Guang Dong in the Governor’s Gold Cup tournament in Lahore was ample proof that the future of hockey in the country was not bright.
M. H Atif said that Pakistan Juniors team had a great track record of winning first five World Junior Cups but it is regrettable to say that Pakistan team could not qualify for this competition which is being held at Hobart (Australia) later this year.
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