Pakistan finish eighth in Junior Hockey World Cup

KUALA LUMPUR:

Pakistan’s FIH Junior World Cup campaign ended on Saturday with a 6-3 defeat by relegated champions Argentina, condemning them to eighth place.

Drag-flick specialist Arbaz Ahmed scored all three goals for Pakistan, who leveled at 2-2 at the end of the first half, only for Argentina to score twice in the space of five minutes in the third quarter to escape from the national team. Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

“We were poor defensively,” Pakistan’s Dutch coach Roland Oltmans told reporters at the post-match press conference. “My players have to improve their fundamentals though [eight of them] have played for the senior team.

“We lose possession very easily and our turns are not good. There are things we need to work on before future tournaments. However, I don’t blame my players. it is still a work in progress. The players need to be creative and their fitness levels need to improve.”

Oltmans said a defensive collapse has haunted Pakistan since the quarter-finals, where they went down 4-2 to France before losing 7-5 to Australia in the fifth-to-eighth seeding match.

“We played our best hockey against Holland, Belgium and New Zealand to finish second in the pool,” he said. “We didn’t concede many goals in the group games. However, despite scoring 10 goals in three knockout games, we conceded 17 goals. If we were better defensively, we could have performed better in the tournament.

“[In the 1-1 draw] against Belgium, our defense was excellent. However, we fell apart from the quarter-finals onwards. This was compounded by the injury absence of our first-choice goalkeeper Ali Raza, who did not play in the knockout round.”

In a highly contested first quarter, Tomas Ruiz and Arbaz traded penalty goals in the sixth and 12th minutes respectively.

Ruiz converted another drag to put Argentina ahead in the 21st, only for Arbaaz to reply five minutes later. this time from a penalty.

But Argentina went full throttle in the third quarter and took a 4-2 lead with goals from Ramiro Infanzon (39th) and Bautista Capurro (44th).

Pakistan reduced the deficit when Arbaaz completed his hat-trick in the 49th minute from the penalty spot, but goals in the 50th and 56th minutes from Ignacio Persolio and Juan Fernandez sealed the result.

Later on Saturday, Germany were crowned champions for a record seventh time after beating France 2-1 in the final.

Jules Verrier fired onto the post to give France the lead in the 17th minute, but Germany struck again to level things with Jan Cordes’ goal in the 32nd, before Liam Holderman scored the decisive goal eight minutes later.