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| July 20, 2003 | Sunday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 19, 1424 |
Junior World Cup our main target: manager
KARACHI, July 19: Pakistan Juniors manager Col (Retd) Abdur Rauf Sandhu said on Saturday that his team is targeting to regain the Junior World Cup which they won in 1979 in Versailles (France).
He made these observations at joint press briefing with coach Asif Bajwa and selector Hasan Sardar at Hockey Club of Pakistan on the eve of junior team’s departure for European tour.
He said because of lack of planning by the previous Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) regime, junior hockey suffered badly. “We are now trying to repair that damage by preparing a new team”, he said.
He said before the Junior World Cup, his team’s mission is to win the Junior Asia Cup being held in Karachi in April 2004.
“Future of Pakistan hockey depend on the new breed of players some of which he hoped will soon be elevated in the senior side shortly,” he said.
He said during past one year they are working on a mission to prepare a pool of young players in age group of 16 to 21 years.
Junior team manager said the team has shown improvement and coming European tour will be of immense importance for these young lads.
He said youngsters will be playing as many as 21 matches in over month-long sojourn.
He dispelled the impression that there was dearth of talented young players and claimed by hard work they have discovered a number of promising players from across the country.
He said they will not make any compromise on discipline because it was the hallmark of team’s success. He added that no one in the team was star and all the members were equal to him. “Discipline had always been top priority and he wants same from the boys on Europe tour.”
He praised boys for showing great discipline and added that it was key to success. “Unity and understanding can make team a world class.”
He said during past one year they were working on a mission to prepare pool of young players in age group of 16 to 21 and currently they they got a pool of 100 players from which five new boys were inducted in the present team.—APP
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