Ahead of the marquee clash against India, Pakistan assistant coach Muhammad Saqlain noted that India does not play ‘structural hockey’ under Craig Fulton and still remains a ‘counter-attacking’ team.
“India doesn’t play in a structure, but Pakistan does. India is playing based on their fitness levels and their penalty corner strengths.
What Korea and Japan played against India, was structured hockey. India plays counter-attacking hockey and not a structured game,” he said.
“Their advantage is their penalty corners and they have one of the world’s best drag-flickers (Harmanpreet Singh). There are some gaps in India. They drew against Japan, played well against Malaysia and again, yesterday, Korea didn’t let them play to their full potential. We also have a few things to work on and we will try on.”
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Saqlain said that his team will need to improve its finishing, after numerous spurned chances in the tournament, in what is a must-win game for Pakistan. Pakistan is fourth in the points table and would need a result in Wednesday’s contest to have a chance of making the last four.
“India is like Australia where they will try to kill the game in the opening 15 minutes. So if we break them in the first quarter and don’t give them short corners, then we will have chances to win too.
It’s a do-or-die match to make the semifinals. The centre forwards of both teams will have a very important role to play tomorrow. In modern hockey, the centre forward always scores goals,” said the 45-year-old.
Saqlain said India-Pakistan clashes can make or break a player’s career.
“It’s been a while since Pakistan beat India. I think it was in 2014 when we last won. This is a young team and there are 14 players who have never played against India.
It’s also a game of nerves and a good player can handle them well. I started my career against India in Delhi. It’s a pressure match where a lot of people want to watch and if you start well here, it’s good for the players and can make their careers,” he said.
After having secured semifinal qualification with a nervy 3-2 win over South Korea last night, India head coach Fulton wanted a better showing as it heads into the contest.
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“[Want to see] Improved performance from yesterday. Our full focus is on what we have to do in preparation to play Pakistan. They are in slightly different situation which makes it an interesting contest.
Everything to do with history of the match makes it enjoyable and exciting for the players and the fans. We are here to play the game in the occasion and not here just for the occasion,” said Fulton.
The young Pakistan team poses a different challenge for the Indian team as it comes up against skillful and pacy individual attackers, particularly the impressive Abdul Hannan Shahid.
“The one-on-one tackling is always something you need to do, especially in a zone or a man-to-man situation. With Asian style, for teams, it becomes natural to have key ball runners or ball winners and get line breaks. Yes, we need to improve on that. At the same time, I am asking our players do to a collective attack because that’s harder,” said Fulton.
The South African also elaborated on the half-court pressing measure deployed. “It’s about setting yourself up to counterattack, where you are trying to draw the opposition out a little bit. It’s a different way of doing it, as certain teams are doing with back-four or back-five.
Half-court gives you a bit more time to compact your team and to start attacking from there if you win the ball. You can high press the whole game and sometimes, teams can work it out, and it’s about what you do next. It’s always about having another layer in behind what you do is to have strongest presses on more than one way to win the ball,” he said.
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