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Journalism of Courage
India and Pakistan clash yet again tomorrow but there is likely to be one change: the open, high-scoring games of the past. Pakistan, under new coach Roelant Oltmans, have undergone a radical change of playing style, infusing their traditional attacking play with the European defensive tactics.
It’s yet another sign that the Pakistanis are adopting professionalism; they have a better record than India in modern hockey — since the introduction of the artifical turf in 1976. Oltmans, who has been instructed to produce results within a year — the main aim is to win an Olympic medal at Athens — is ignoring the stares from Pakistani fans at this tournament.
He is aware that the shift towards defensive, tactical play, forgoing natural instincts, will not go down well with the purists but he’s unaffected by it. ‘‘I know the passion it creates but frankly I am only bothered about my team performing. My aim is to produce results, not entertain the fans’’, he told The Indian Express.
Results matter; the Pakistanis are concerned that they haven’t won an Olympic title or World Cup since 1994. Pakistan reached the finals of their first tournament under Oltmans, the Azlan Shah in Kuala Lumpur.
On taking over, Oltmans asked for his own support staff, and got them too. His team comprises a trainer and goalkeeper coach from Holland and a cameraman from Italy, whose sole job is to tape the performance of the other teams for study by the Pakistani team.
The primary focus was to take care of the team’s key player, PC expert Sohail Abbas. The demands made on the players are ‘‘impossible’’, the coach said, and so he recalled Mohammed Sarwar, of the best playmakers, who’d quit the game after being dropped last year. ‘‘Sarwar is a very clever player and still has a big contribution to make’’, said Oltmans.
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Spain hold Holland
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MADRID: Olympic champions the Netherlands escaped with a 2-2 draw with Spain in a crucial pool A game of the men’s Olympic hockey qualifying tournament here today. In another match in the same pool, a 35th minute penalty corner goal by Tom Bertram carried Great Britain to a 1-0 win against Japan. |
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Oltmans’s work can be broken down into five key steps:
• In two months, he’s watched around 80 players in the Pakistani domestic circuit to make his team selection
• He’s recalled brilliant playmaker Mohammed Sarwar from retirment. Sarwar was given a fitness chart to follow at home and join the team directly in Madrid
• Sohail Abbas has to be in a strong frame of mind. The Pakistani think-tank also wants to ensure that when the team gets a PC, the supporting players involved do their job smoothly so that there is less pressure on Sohail
• Introduced defensive strategy, including changing positions in defence and midfield to strength defence. Sohail is often played in the midfield, Waseem Ahmed as inside-left instead of his former position as a left-half.
• Goalkeeping specialist Jansen has been specially asked to tighten this area since in modern hockey, ‘‘even scoring four goals does not ensure victory’’.
The team has brought two ’keepers — the younger one, Salman was deliberately made to face India in the previous tournament at the Azlan Shah so he could get used to the pressure.
