KARACHI: Five goalkeepers are getting trained by five coaches in the ongoing camp of Pakistan hockey team in Lahore, ‘The News’ has learnt.
As per details, goalkeepers Mazhar, Amjad, Waqar, Abdullah Ishtiaq and Akmal Hussain are participating in the training camp, three of them seniors. Holland’s Bob Johan Veldhof is leading Imran Butt, Nasir Ahmed, Imran Shah and Ahmed Alam in coaching the goalkeepers.
Ahmed Alam was part of the training camp in the first phase but has not joined the training camp in Lahore. Qamar Zia, a former Olympian goalkeeper, said that the appointment of so many goalkeeping coach raised questions about PHF’s planning. “The management should state clearly the reasons behind this as there are only five goalkeepers in the training camp. This never happened in any training camp in Pakistan’s history,” Qamar said.
Goalkeeping has been the weakest area for both senior and junior sides in the recent past. PHF has tried all great goalkeepers of the country, including Shahid Ali Khan and late Mansoor Ahmed, but the goalkeeping could not be improved and emerged as the biggest reason of Pakistan’s defeats in major events, including Asian Champions Trophy last year and Junior World Cup 2021. The senior team’s goalkeepers conceded 18 goals in six matches and the junior goalkeepers conceded 14 in five matches.
Pakistan seniors ended fourth in the five-team Asian Champions Trophy. The juniors finished 11th in the 16-team World Cup. Thus, PHF high officials and team management agreed that a foreign goalkeeping coach was the need of the hour to train and coach Pakistani goalkeepers for upcoming big events.
Pakistan are to compete in Asia Cup 2022, which is significant as far as Hockey World Cup qualification is concerned, Commonwealth Games 2022, and some other major events. They will also appear in Asian Games 2023.
PHF also appointed Rassie Piterese, a South African Olympian goalkeeper, for the training of Pakistani goalkeepers, but it also did not work out. A former player said the different styles of coaching would affect the performance of Pakistani goalkeepers because of being coached by so many different coaches.
The manager of Pakistan seniors, Khawaja Junaid, said that Holland’s Bob John Valdop was the head coach of goalkepeers coaching squad. All planning is done by the Dutch coach and the Pakistani coaches implement his plan.
He said that Pakistan goalkeepers are lagging behind the strong teams. “We made a lot of efforts to improve the skills of goalkeepers but did not get the desired results,” he said.
“Local coaches will learn the modern-day techniques for the training and coaching of goalkeepers from the Dutch goalkeeper,” he said. “These coaches then will train coaches our domestic teams which will help Pakistan hockey in the long run,” he said. When asked how much Pakistani goalkeepers had improved since the appointment of the foreign coach, Junaid said that right now he cannot comment on the improvement of goalkeepers because only two weeks had passed since they began training under the Dutch man.
He said that this process would take some time and the results would appear in international competitions. “But our boys and coaches are working hard to improve their skills,” he said. Holland’s Siegfried Aikmen is the head coach who is supervising the training of 25 probable players in the training camp.