Youth Olympic coach expects team to shine

Tahir Zaman believes U16 hockey team has ability to control the game.

KARACHI: Pakistan junior hockey coach for Youth Olympics Tahir Zaman is banking on the team’s ability to control the game by utilising their improved maturity levels to help them shine at the August Summer Youth Olympics in China.

“Our hopes are high and it is an honour for the team to participate in Youth Olympics,” Zaman told The Express Tribune.

“But it will be crucial to ensure that we make as few mistakes as possible and keep good control on the game. The players are young, and they are very unpredictable at this age.”

Zaman said that the training schedule features short sessions as the competition will have five-a-side matches with shorter halves.

“It will be possible for us to complete our training in a short time,” said Zaman.

He also informed that the first phase of training is starting from Thursday. Due to Ramazan, the players will be doing physical training early in the morning for one hour and then field training will be done in floodlights followed by physical and video training.

He added that the purpose of showing videos is to make the players aware of their mistakes.

“The last phase of training will start after a four-day Eid rest, which will be the last week of the training camp,” added Zaman.

The U16 hockey team squad from Pakistan has qualified for the tournament, which will take place from August 16-28 in Nanjing, China, and will feature 172 events in 30 disciplines.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2014.

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