ISLAMABAD, March 30 FIH-recognised Grade-I coach Tahir Zaman hinted on Tuesday that hiring a foreign coaching team may turn out to be a failure for Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) because foreigners were after all not familiar with the dynamics, history and culture of Pakistan in order to handle the players here.

The PHF have recently started searching for a foreign coaching team to revive Pakistans lost glory on the international stage while ignoring the FIH-recognised Grade-I coach Tahir Zaman and master coach Tayyab Ikram.

Speaking to Dawn on Tuesday, Tahir Zaman, who is also an Olympian, said “The experiment of hiring foreign coaches has already failed in a few countries because the federations are unwilling to hand over full powers, such as selecting a team of their choice, to them.”

Asked why then had Pakistan hired the services of Dutch coach Hans Jorritsma under whom Pakistan had clinched the 1994 FIH World Cup in Sydney, he said “Jorritsma was only hired as a short-corner specialist. He did not serve as a full coach for the national squad.”

A foreign coach, he said, would need more time to understand the psyche of local hockey players. And that is not all as they also hail from varied cultural backgrounds and speak different languages.

Over the national team's poor performance in the recently-concluded World Cup, Tahir asserted that the green shirts failed to register better physical fitness, good psychological strength, technical ability and tactical maneuvering in the mega event.

Pakistan finished at the bottom of the 12-nation mega event played in India earlier this month.

While replying to a question about the physical fitness of senior players, he pointed out that the “senior players in the side had their future in their own hands. It all depends on their maintaining better fitness standards.”

Giving the example of the 34-year-old Dutch forward Teun de Nooijer, who was part of the Dutch hockey squad which appeared in this year's World Cup, he said “Teun de Nooijer is still playing for Netherlands while being rated as a better physically fit and experienced player in the squad.”

The Olympian informed “I have a few good coaching offers from Europe and Central Asia but I don't want to leave my country due to some domestic issues.”