AS I started putting pen to paper this week, the national team, and, indeed, the entire PHF establishment was still busy celebrating the Rabo Cup gold. And why not? After all, it is a rare moment and deserves to be honoured. The gesture shown by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who, by virtue of his office, is the PHF Patron, also has the potential to encourage the players as well as the officials to work even more enthusiastically when it comes to future assignments.
While such celebrations and cash rewards are all in the correct spirit, I guess it is not such a good idea for the hockey bosses to call the Rabo Cup triumph a turning point in the fortunes of the national team. On the one hand, it puts extra and unnecessary pressure on the boys and everyone related to the team, and, on the other, it raises the level of expectations among the followers of the game which, in turn, backfires when the results don’t match the pre-event claims.
Pakistan, as we all know, won any major title some eleven years ago when it clinched the World Cup in the Australian city of Sydney, and the Champions Trophy in our own backyard in Lahore. Both of them were unquestionably much more meaningful titles than the Rabo Cup. Similar statements were made at the time, but as the world saw and is continuing to see, Pakistan has not been able to repeat its performance since then.
Again, Pakistan’s last major triumph on European soil in any tournament involving more than four nations came in Barcelona, Spain, back in 1992. Despite all the morale-boosting statements that were made at the time, it took Pakistan thirteen years to repeat the feat in a continent which has been our nemesis in world hockey.
The point I wish to stress here is that we must not repeat the mistakes we committed after Barcelona 1992 and then again a couple of years later. The whole hockey establishment heaved a sigh of relief at those victories, because even they had come after a long gap, and did not move professionally to consolidate the gains. It is time for the sitting PHF management, to concentrate even more, and not less, on what needs to be done from hereon.
First, the PHF must analyze seriously and professionally what the team lacked in Hamburg and Amstelveen. The fact that the team won the Rabo Cup shall not be allowed to cloud our vision. The assignments ahead are much more gruelling. There is the Champions Trophy and the World Cup in the short term, and the Olympics are set for 2008.
While preparing for, say, the Champions Trophy, there can be no doubt that teams there will be at full strength unlike the recent European outings where teams like Germany, Holland and even India featured a lot of novices. Besides, the format of the Rabo Cup was such that the winner was not required to face all the teams in the league stage. In the Champions Trophy, there would be no letup in pressure. More often than not, we have been finishing behind Australia, Germany and Holland, and lock horns with anyone from India, Spain and South Korea for the next four slots.
The way Pakistan played against an almost full-strength Australian side in the final at Amstelveen must have given a lot of heart to the boys and their managers. But it would have also alerted the Australians and the rest to come up with fresh plans. The pressure would be on Pakistan to repeat and somehow sustain their Rabo final form. Mind you, we are only talking about the form shown by the team in the final. The pool matches were pretty ordinary considering the fact that Germany and India were terribly under-strength teams. We will continue to discuss the vital points that were raised by the team’s performance on its twin tour to Europe. Hopefully, someone at the PHF would be listening.
AS I started putting pen to paper this week, the national team, and, indeed, the entire PHF establishment was still busy celebrating the Rabo Cup gold. And why not? After all, it is a rare moment and deserves to be honoured. The gesture shown by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who, by virtue of his office, is the PHF Patron, also has the potential to encourage the players as well as the officials to work even more enthusiastically when it comes to future assignments.
Pakistan, as we all know, won any major title some eleven years ago when it clinched the World Cup in the Australian city of Sydney, and the Champions Trophy in our own backyard in Lahore. Both of them were unquestionably much more meaningful titles than the Rabo Cup. Similar statements were made at the time, but as the world saw and is continuing to see, Pakistan has not been able to repeat its performance since then.
