Life has taught much for former Pakistan captain Ahmad Alam. The gentleman nowadays is at times diplomatic, perhaps the innumerable obstacles he faced in his sports career mellowed him. He had been in and out of the Pakistan team and at present is run out of favour with the authorities. He is therefore cautious about criticising anyone though his wonted habit of calling spade as a spade does not seem to wane even a wee bit. He spoke to stick2hockey.com, focussing mainly on technical and tactical aspects of Asian hockey as practised by India and Pakistan.

It is very very important to have a systematic coaching pattern throughout the country in both India and Pakistan. There are a combination of factors which saw the decline of hockey in the Asian sub-continent. We have ruled the world but now we are trailing the Europeans. But that does not mean we have to blindly follow the Europeans or for that matter Australians. We have to play to our strength and realise that we have much more potential than these foreign countries, which were foreign to hockey for long.

There are two very important factors as far as reviving hockey in India and Pakistan is concerned. It is very important to have good coaches and a coaching system where a player at the grassroot level is exposed to the system he is going to play if he reaches the top level; say at the Nationals or when he represents the country. It is also important to professionalise hockey coaching like the Europeans do. Like have a support staff who specialise in different aspects of the game. Every team should have a goalkeeper coach, a trained
fitness expert, a dietician, penalty corner coach and likewise. Here we have to take the good from others and learn to be professional.

Secondly, there is a lot a foreign coach has to learn when it comes to India and Pakistan. They take at least two years to learn our culture. They too easily make it more defensive and kill our attacking style. They sideline seniors who are well established because they oppose some of the new methods. Change is difficult when you learn and practice something for your life time and suddenly someone tells you not to do such and such a thing which you have been doing for ages and succeeding. So when criticism mounts they blame the seniors and make them the scapegoat. The federations too give too much respect to these people.

Here it is very important to understand that there is a system in our countries where Seniors often become guides, partners and coaches to the juniors, who in turn become teachers after some years of experience. This Guru-Sishya relationship, will be a major tool which is being discarded with the advent of foreign coaches.

I also see no point blaming Olympians for not giving back to hockey. Nowadays there are no free lunches in life. Each one expects money. Hopefully, with more sponsors, these Olympians can be paid so that they will comeback to hockey. Don’t forget they never made any money while playing hockey. Basically, I don’t think these oldies are out of sink with modern hockey. The major changes are all in the terminology and the basics never change.

Take for example the no-off-side rule. They wanted more goals. But it has put more defenders in the circle. So may be off side will comeback again. We used to do the running on the flanks and call it by a hindi
name. Now they say channelising. We used run around to receive the pass. Now they say off the ball running. All these things are important but not difficult if the basics are right.

The 34-year old who played 238 matches including Sydney and Atlanta Olympics besides 8 CT, 3 Asiads and 2 Asia Cups plans to start a goalkeeping Academy to make specialist goalies from all over Pakistan.
He had a word of praise for young Adrian D’ Souza while talking about the present lot of custodians.

Take your own national goalie at Athens. He is so mature. He has a clever head on such an young shoulders. More goalies like that who have a thinking cap are a must for the development of hockey. But more importantly, we have to have a professional set-up.

A s2h special