Pakistan play Belgium today

Pakistan hockey team will play its first match in the European tour against Belgium on Wednesday.

KARACHI: The Pakistan hockey team will play its first match in the European tour against Belgium today. The 21-member squad began their tour on September 3 to gear up for the upcoming Commonwealth Games that will begin in New Delhi from October 3 till 14.

The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) stated that the team will receive training from their coach Michel van den Heuvel in Eindhoven, Holland while playing against different local Dutch clubs as well as other teams like Hungary and Poland to get enough practice for the Games.

The team will play four matches in the coming weeks, which include three matches against the Netherlands and one match against Germany.

Pakistan will take on Germany tomorrow and participate in a friendly fundraiser for flood victims against Holland on September 14, with the remaining two matches scheduled for September 16 and 17.

“The Dutch clubs are very competitive and at times they are tougher to beat than their national team,” assistant coach Ahmad Alam told The Express Tribune.

The camp has been met with a lot of criticisism by former hockey players in Pakistan, but Heuvel answered believes it was the right thing to do.“The team requires substantial match practice, but foreign teams were not accepting the invitation to play in Pakistan because of the law and order situation, therefore we had to bring the team to Holland.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2010.