PHF mulls European tour for Asia Cup probables

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has increased its efforts to give international exposure to the Asia Cup probables by ensuring a training tour of Europe in April for the much-needed preparations.

The Asian event will also serve as the qualifying round for the World Cup 2023.

Though the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) has yet to finalise the Cup schedule, Oman is likely to stage the event in May, almost seven months ahead of the start of the World Cup.

Pakistan being ranked No 5 in Asia is expected to get a tough pool. Chances are there that Pakistan may be grouped with India and Japan while Korea and Malaysia getting different groups. Pakistan can only ensure a place in the World Cup by ending up in the semi-finals of the Asia Cup and the Greenshirts will have to beat one of the top two teams. Only four teams from Asia are to make it to the World Cup to be staged by India in January 2023.

The dying down Covid-19 spike upstaged Pakistan Hockey Federation’s (PHF) plans to hold a four-nation international event or to invite a couple of teams to play tri-series before the Asia Cup.

Earlier, the PHF was planning to host a four-nation event where some leading Asian teams including Korea and Japan were also expected to compete. However, the Covid-19 complications upset federation’s plans as some of the Asian countries expressed their regret to take the tour citing one reason or the other.

“Now we are planning to take team probables to Europe to play against the best of the lot. The majority of European teams these days are busy playing the FIH League. So once these nations will have time to regroup we would schedule the programme. Hopefully, something would come up in a few days’ time,” one of the officials said.

He added that top national aspirants have everything but what they lack is international exposure that crippled their progress in the recently-held Asian Champions Trophy in Bangladesh.

“What we want is to give at least ten international matches to the team before heading for the May Asia Cup. Since the Cup holds immense importance for the country’s hockey, we need to go into the event fully prepared and ready unlike that of last month’s Champions Trophy.”

“Even the World Cup is not far away but the first target is to prepare a competitive outfit for the Asia Cup where our efforts would be to win it. A good performance in the Asia Cup would set things rolling for Pakistan hockey.

“From there on we would only have one target and that is to prepare the team with full force for the World Cup. Now when we have hired a well-versed Dutch coach and foreign trainers, all we need is the international exposure and to see the maximum input from the coach.”