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NEW DELHI: Former captain and coach of Pakistan hockey team Tahir Zaman feels that there is no overnight solution to the problems being faced by the Pakistan team currently. A foreign coach, according to him, is definitely not an answer.
“Almost all the experiments with foreign coaches have flopped in India and Pakistan. India once brought Ric Charlesworth as high performance director but could not utilise him. Same is the case with Pakistan,” Zaman said from Cairo where he works as head coach of Egypt men's team.
“People say that Pakistan had won the 1994 Sydney World Cup because of Dutch coach Hans Jorritsma. He was an important part of the Pakistani contingent at Sydney but his role was restricted to train the team on specific areas like short corners and defense. And he was neither in charge of the entire squad, nor the principle planner. The overall in-charge was the team manager Rashid Jr.
"During the 1994 World Cup it was also interesting to note that Pakistan won most of their matches on the basis of field goals, playing fast attacking hockey that was their quintessential style, and not penalty corners," he added.
Jorritsma was the first foreign coach of the Pakistan hockey team, followed by Dutch coach Reolant Oltmans (2004-05) and currently they have another Dutchman in Michel Van Den Heuvel.
Zaman said foreign coaches should be hired "to train our own coaches" and not the players directly.
“Foreign experts come from different cultural background and they need at least a year to understand our players," he said.
Zaman said that incompetent administrators in the subcontinent have failed to understand what needs to be done to bring back the glorious days.
“We have so much of talent in that 3-4 world level teams can be prepared here. But our administrators want overnight miracles, which is not possible. We cannot win Olympics or World Cup without proper planning.”
