I was one time a great fan of our hockey team and just loved the way the forwards combined to make fluent moves (my late maamon would miss office just to watch hockey with us and would do bhangra on every goal!) What a dream forward line we had back in the early-mid 80s? - Samiullah (flying horse), Hanif Khan (the brains behind many forward moves), the incomparable Hassan Sardar as centre-forward, Manzoor Junior (a master dribbler who would consistently dodge 3-4 people from the 25 yard line to the D) and Kaleemullah (Samiullah’s brother, many goals were courtesy of his wonderful crosses across the D)
Don’t remember much of Islahuddin and Shahnaz Sheikh (I never saw them play as I was too young then but history confirms that they were great players)
The defence (goalie, half-line and full-backs) was great but back in those days we did not have a great penalty corner specialist like Sohail Abbas…I remember they struggled to even stop the ball cleanly and could not make use of many penalty corners as a result!
Since those glorious days of our hockey, we have only produced one truly world-class forward, Shahbaz Ahmed who was by popular opinion as good a player as Hassan Sardar if not better than him. He retired in the mid 90s. Shahbaz Ahmed - Wikipedia](Shahbaz Ahmed - Wikipedia)
He was very effective even though he did not have the luxury of playing in a great forward line-up. We won the 1994 world Cup mainly because of his efforts in particular his sensational performance against Australia in the semis, we beat them 2-0.
I believe that the defence is the weakest point of this team. Pakistan concede far too many goals against top teams these days - 4 or 5 on average! which is simply unacceptable
Maybe Pakistan should just take a break from international hockey (cf. Zimbabwe in cricket) until they have ironed out certain basic problems like defence lapses and are good enough to consistently compete with top teams - Germany, Australia, Holland, Korea and Spain - again. Perhaps there should be an earnest nation-wide talent hunt to unearth the next Hassan Sardar or Shahbaz Ahmed.
Most importantly we need to raise the salaries of the national hockey players in order to raise their self-esteem and give them some kind of long-term security in life. I know the PHF is not as rich as PCB but if an average national cricketer earns around Rs 40-50 lacs per annum incl. royalties, our hockey players should be earning atleast a third of that. Is it asking too much? These players need all the encouragement that they can get because hockey is still our national sport and it has brought more laurels for our country than any other team sport - a record 4 hockey world cups and 3 Olympic Hockey Golds to be precise.
End of Match. GBR desperately attack, but to no avail. The clock ticks down and ESP have won the match. GBR are thus ranked 6th in the final standings, while ESP are 5th. With this victory, ESP have also won participation in next year´s Champions Trophy, completing the field consisting of Germany, Australia, Korea, the Netherlands, and Argentina.
There is nothing to be ashamed off. Its not Pak players fault. As Moonstar95 has already been discussing, It’s lack of support bei their our hockey federation. Nothing has improved, since the old good days. Look at Espania. A crappy team and now they even ready to beat giants like Germany, Holland.
Holland put us in our rightful place with another drubbing 4-1:mad: anyways can’t really expect much from a team that even struggles to beat Malaysia these days. Maybe the IHF should look into the results of our games against Spain (2-0), Korea (3-3) and Australia (1-2) to investigate the possibility of match-fixing!
What cruel justice. Korea cleaned Holland up in the league game 6-2 but seem to be battling against them today. Just goes to show how things can change quickly between two teams in the same tournament!
churri kantay ka muqabla ho raha hai AUS & GER ke beech main :k: GER is holding on to its slim lead of 1 GOAL scored in the 5th min of first half. AUSSIES had 7 shots on the goal so far [same # by the GER] but no luck.
**
EGLINGTON is finally back on the field after serving 25 minutes of suspension. AUS are back to full strength.
maybe the reason why AUS haven’t been able to score the eQualizer.
time is running out for AUS. GER are defending their 1 GOAL lead very well. AUS just can't penetrate their defence. a bit of frustration creeping into AUS mid-fielders n forwards.
**
GER 1
AUS 0
less than 5 mins left and AUS are now facing the dire prospect of running out of time and losing the match for a 5th minute lone goal.**
