Pakistan hockey eyes spot at 2016 Rio Olympics

Champions Trophy in December to act as testing ground ahead of qualifiers

KARACHI: The national hockey team is fired up and ready to fight for a place at the 2016 Rio Olympics after returning home with silver from the Asian Games.  

“We need to work hard to book our place at the Olympics,” head coach Shahnaz Sheikh told The Express Tribune. “We’ll be facing a tough qualification round against nine other teams in March, so we will look to the Champions Trophy in December to test ourselves.”

The upcoming event is scheduled to be held in Delhi, India from December 6 to 14 this year. “We have planned to test our youngsters there in order to unveil some more talent before the qualifiers.”

Sheikh stated that they would begin preparing for the Champions Trophy next month.

“During the camp, we will be working on the weak areas mentioned in the report I submitted last week, which analysed our performance at the Asian Games,” said the coach while adding that the attacking build up and defence needed improvement.

Referring to the squad’s performance in South Korea, the official said he believes they had produced satisfactory results considering the players were under criticism prior to the event for showing signs of exhaustion in the last 10 minutes in previous competitions.

“Our players scored most of the goals in that time period at the Asiad, which shows they have improved.

“I made a record 240 substitutes in six matches, meaning I used 40 players in every match; none of the others team managed to even come close to that,” he said, adding that his approach was to use the maximum number of players to give them much-needed exposure.

According to Sheikh, seven of the players had received contracts from international leagues and he was hoping the Pakistan Hockey Federation would soon start improving on its domestic structure in order to hold league matches within the country.