KARACHI: Winning silver medal at the recent Champions Trophy hockey tournament provides great motivation for the Pakistan team to qualify for next year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics, forward-line coach Syed Sameer Hussain said here on Tuesday.

“Despite the financial constraints and other problems, Pakistan team’s achievement deserves all the credit and support,” ex-Olympian Sameer said in an exclusive interview here.

He said it was disappointing to see that despite achieving good results in a major international event, the national team was not given the honour and treatment it deserved.

“The silver medal against heavy odds in India was a huge boost for the players and enough motivation for entering the 2016 Olympic Games,” commented Sameer who has been assisting head coach Shahnaz Sheikh during the past few months.

“Beating powerful teams like the Netherlands and India in front of a hostile crowd was a big accomplishment indeed. They way our forwards performed and showed their scoring power is a good sign for the future,” said Sameer who was part of Pakistan team that competed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

He added that the Pakistan forwards are showing improved scoring skills in recent months which was evident at the Incheon Asian Games as well as in the Champions Trophy.

Praising the young players in the team, Sameer said Pakistan’s emerging star forward Arsalan Qadir, who netted five goals in Champions Trophy, and junior player Ali Shan are good future prospects besides a few other players.

It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan staged an incredible comeback in the Champions Trophy after losing all their three league games to Belgium, England and Australia respectively. They not only beat the Netherlands in the quarterfinal but put up a fantastic show to beat arch-rivals India in a tension-filled semi-final.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2015

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