KARACHI: Pakistan’s legendary hockey player ‘Flying Horse’ Samiullah has said that in order to retain their place among the top hockey-playing nations of the world, the Pakistan hockey team needs to play and practice more together to build understanding between the players.

‘Our players need to play more hockey together to improve their performance as a whole team. Players learn a lot by playing in the leagues but they need to come together for comprehensive training before entering any major event,’ he said.

Samiullah said that Pakistan’s performance in the ongoing World Cup qualifiers could be termed as satisfactory but not excellent.

‘They need to beat each team by a margin of six goals to justify their ranking as compared to their low-graded opponents,’ he said.

He added that Pakistan will be facing stiff resistance from Japan, who would be making an all-out effort to upset them and qualify for the all-important World Cup.

‘Pakistan, in the recent past, too, have worked hard to overpower Japan and they must have entered the tournament with a better strategy to tackle the favourites. Pakistan need to be well-prepared if they want to beat Japan on Thursday,’ he pointed out.

He further said that if Pakistan win this tournament, they must prepare very well for next year’s World Cup.—PPI