Under the guidance of Michael Van der Heuvel, Pakistan hockey team won the gold medal in the Asian Games 2010, after a gap of 28 years. Before Mr Heuvel took over as coach, the team had finished last in World Cup Championship 2009. Indeed, the only time Pakistan won a major title after 1984 was in 1994 when it bagged the World Cup. It is no coincidence that the coach then too was a European.
In the last quarter of a century, rules governing field hockey have changed drastically, making strategy and tactics a decisive factor in winning or losing. European and Australian coaches have made strategies and tactics into a near science, with the obvious effect of making the coach the kingpin of a team. We need their services until our own trainers reach that standard.
Mr Heuvel wanted to continue with his assignment until the Olympics after which his contract with the Pakistan Hockey Federation would have expired. But he was unceremoniously dismissed for a minor infringement of his contract: for entering into an agreement with a Dutch club to coach their team after the end of his tenure in Pakistan.
The upshot of this dismissal was that our national team finished last in the prestigious Azlan Shah Cup Hockey Tournament, and gave only a mediocre performance in the Olympics. The actual reason for the removal of Mr Heuvel appears to be to accommodate Akhtar Rasool, an ex-Olympian and a PML-Q stalwart, as the chief coach, in order to oblige PML-Q, an ally of PPP.
In this way, President Asif Ali Zardari, and his henchman Qasim Zia, President Pakistan Hockey Federation, played with the sentiments of countless Pakistanis, who expected the team to reach at least the semis, in London. All one can say, resignedly, is that this is another tarred feather in PPP’s cap.
JAVED ASGHER
Lahore