MADRID, March 4: Pakistan were too experienced for Belgium, taking the match 2-0 in Pool B of the men's Olympic qualifying hockey tournament here on Thursday.
Belgium played a defensive first half, using their well-organized deep four of Cedric Degreve in goal and fullbacks Thierry Renaer, Gilles Petre and Marc Caudron to keep Pakistan outside Belgium's circle.
Mohammad Saqlain put his own team under pressure for 10 minutes, serving a suspension which gave Belgium two wasted chances to score. Pakistan's wingers Rehan Butt and Shabbir Hussain harried Belgium and despite 63 percent of the possession and four penalty corners in the first half, Pakistan could not score.
Degreve charged two corner attempts by Sohail Abbas and two of his flicks were deflected away by the runner. After the break, Shakeel Abbasi missed an open goal when Mudassir Ali Khan drew Degreve and passed to the left of circle to allow Abbasi an unchallenged shot, driven wide to the left of the open goal.
Sohail Abbas aided the conversion of Pakistan's fifth penalty corner, pushing low and slow for Kashif Jawwad to swoop in from the right of the circle and deflect the pass up and into goal.
Saqlain made amends for his earlier suspension by finishing an exchange of four short passes between Mohammad Nadeem and Saqlain through the middle of the pitch, with Saqlain flicking to the right of Degreve for Pakistan's second goal.
"We were patient today and should have scored in the first half," said Pakistan's coach, Roelant Oltmans, "But we kept our confidence and talked about how to get the penalty corner variation working and you saw us score from it in the second half.
"I am happy with the overall performance of the team and it is a good start to have 6 points from 2 matches," Oltmans added, "And I am happy with the way the team is performing and they will improve more before the Olympics."
Pakistan meet India Saturday and Oltmans knows it will be tough to beat India. "India have many good players in their squad and it will be a very tough game against India.
The boys know what we want from them but sometimes emotions get in the way so it will be interesting to see how they deal with the emotions in the match against India."
Spain waited to the last minute to break the deadlock and beat South Africa 2-1 while the Netherlands cruised to a 3-0 victory over winless Great Britain in Pool A. Spain and Netherlands head Pool A with 6 points each and clash on Friday.
The day's other Pool A match saw Japan mount two amazing comebacks from 2-0 down and then 4-2 behind to draw 4-4 with Poland. South Africa jumped out to an early lead with Steve Evans' sixth minute field goal.
Santiago Freixa converted a penalty corner for a 1-1 score line at the break.
In the final seconds of play with Spain pressing into South Africa's circle and with the crowd counting down the seconds on the clock, Spain earned its sixth penalty corner, for the half and Xavier Ribas stepped up to take the pressure conversion after the final hooter. Ribas flicked high into the net to the left of Chris Hibbert in goal. -AFP
