Top 10 finish at World Cup is possible – hockey head coach
KUALA LUMPUR: The national hockey squad is confident of claiming a top 10 finish in the 2018 men’s World Cup from Nov 28 to Dec 12 at the Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar, India.
Its head coach Roelant Oltmans said, the commendable Malaysian Tigers squad have players with creativity and talent to succeed the mission.
However, the Dutch man’s first priority is to focus on securing at least one win in the group stage in order to secure a berth to the knockout phase in Malaysia’s eighth World Cup appearance.
That one win is not as easy as it sounds, when the Malaysian Tigers squad is drawn in Pool D, considered as `group of death’, comprising a record four-time champions Pakistan, threetime winners Netherlands and two-time champions Germany.
“Off course the top 10 is possible, but it is also difficult because they have to beat the strongest teams in the world. If we beat one team and advance to the second round, most likely we have to face Belgium, and another strong team.
“But anything is possible in the knockout phase, like how Malaysia defeated India through a shootout in the Asian Games (semifinals). We are actually moving to a higher level, we play a structured game and I have enough knowledge against the European teams (to achieve it),” he said in a press conference at the National Hockey Stadium here, today.
The former India and Pakistan coach Roelant, who had tasted the World Cup title with the Netherlands women’s team in 1990 and men’s team in 1998, admitted that the players must know how to react according to the situations, to avoid conceding in the final minutes of the matches, like what happened in the past, including at the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games.
The national side, ranked 12th in the world, will start the campaign against world number four Netherlands on Dec 1, followed by clashes against Pakistan (13th) on Dec 5 and Germany (6) on Dec 9.
According to the new tournament format, the topplaced teams from all four groups will advance straight to the quarterfinals, while second and third placed teams will play in the knockout stage to vie for their berth for the last eight stage.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) President Datuk Seri Subahan Kamal said three test matches were set up against the world number nine New Zealand on Nov 16, 20 and 22 at the National Hockey Stadium.
“The test matches against `The Black Sticks’ is crucial for us to be in best form ahead of World Cup. They will be doing their preparations here, so we managed to get them for the test matches. MHC hopes our boys will put up a good show to get a decent outing at the World Cup.
“A strong finish at the World Cup is important for our 2020 Tokyo Olympics too, because the rankings will determine who our opponents will be,” he said.
Malaysia’s best ever outing at the World Cup was a fourthplace finish when hosting the 1975 edition, while during the last edition in 2014, the national side finished sixth in Pool A among as many teams, after losing all five matches. - Bernama