Pakistan, the reigning Asian Games champions, were stunned by minnows France 4-2 in their opening game of the four-nation tournament earlier this week. Later, on Wednesday evening, the Greenshirts faced some anxious moments before prevailing over lower-ranked China 3-2 to keep their title hopes alive.
Now, the Pakistanis will have to beat hosts Ireland on Friday to qualify for Saturday’s final. At the moment the Irish are surprisingly placed at the top of the points table following a couple of positive results.
Pakistan’s below-par showing in Dublin is pretty unexpected considering the fact that they embarked on the month-long European sojourn just weeks after giving a solid show in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Ipoh, Malaysia. Pakistan played in the final in Ipoh where they lost to reigning world champions Australia in extra-time.
However, Pakistan team officials are not concerned by their team’s unimpressive results in the Irish quadrangular.
“The good thing about our first two matches of the tour is that they’ve provided our players with excellent workouts,” Khawaja Junaid, the Pakistan team manager, told Arab News from Dublin on Thursday.
“It’s a training tour ahead of next year’s Olympic Games and we want our boys to get as many tough games as possible,” said Junaid, a former Olympian.
Junaid rejected the impression that losing to underdogs France was a huge upset.
“France is a very good European team. They have really improved over the years and played really well against us.
“Our biggest problem in that match was that we conceded too many soft goals a bit too early. Otherwise the boys played pretty well even though they lost in the end.”
Junaid also gave full marks to his charges for their 3-2 win over China on Wednesday.
“China are a highly improved team and it was pretty visible during yesterday’s match,” he said. “They gave a strong performance but our team fought hard and managed to earn valuable victory points to stay in the hunt for a place in the final.”
Against China, Pakistan’s goal scorers were their short corner specialist Sohail Abbas and young strikers Abdul Haseem Khan and Muhammad Zubair.
Pakistan will now have to beat Ireland on Friday to qualify for Saturday’s final.
Junaid is confident that Pakistan will over the gutsy Irish to secure their place in the final. “Ireland are playing well but we have worked out a solid game plan to beat them tomorrow,” he said.
Pakistan are scheduled leave Dublin for Amstelveen (Netherlands) on Sunday to feature in a four-nation Rabo Trophy that will also feature European powerhouses Germany, Great Britain and hosts Netherlands from June 28-July 2.
Unlike the Dublin event where Pakistan are the highest-ranked team, the Greenshirts will feature in the Amstelveen spectacle as the underdogs.
Junaid said that his boys are looking forward to the challenge. “Our team wants to play against the big boys because that’s the only way to improve,” he stressed.
