KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 — The national hockey squad will continue their effort to qualify for the Olympics Games after almost two decades of waiting when commencing the FIH Men’s Series Finals competition tomorrow at the National Hockey Stadium, Bukit Jalil.
The last time The Malaysian Tigers squad performed in the Olympics was at the 2000 Sydney edition whereby the national team ended the competition in 11th place out of 12 nations competing.
The national squad was forced to travel a difficult and challenging path after failing to confirm a ticket to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games champions, after losing to Japan through a penalty decider in the final.
Malaysia must end the competition in the top two positions at the qualifying championship to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to advance to the final qualification round which would take place in October and November this year.
According to the format of the FIH Men’s Series Finals, the champion of the group would advance to the semi-finals round, while the teams in the second and third position must travel a more difficult road when they had to win a crossover action to advance to the semi-finals.
The squad, ranked 13th in the world, and coached by Roelant Oltmans, would open the curtain by facing the world’s number 27 team, Brazil whereby the national squad rightly should not face any problem to overcome the Samba squad when in action on the newly upgraded pitch.
A stiff challenge would face Malaysia on Sunday upon meeting the 14th ranked team in the world, China which had exhibited excellent actions at the 2018 World Cup in Bhubaneswar, India, before completing the Group B schedule against Italy (32) on Monday.
Group A was filled with the 10th ranked team in the world, Canada, which was also the highest ranked in the championship, Austria (19), Wales (24) and Belarus (31).
Should the Malaysian Tigers squad fail to record a win over China, which almost shocked the world’s number seven team England and the world’s number 11th team Ireland at the World Cup, Malaysia might have to go through a difficult path when forced to perform in the crossover round and meet Canada in the semi-finals.
‘‘China had proven they are a good team in the World Cup, no doubts, so we don’t take them lightly. We view them very seriously, we give our assurance that we are ready, we have our tactics for the match,’’ said Roelant, who had tasted success at the Olympics and World Cup.
“Indeed, the championship is the target, but when the competition starts, we will take it a match at a time. I have very high confidence in the line-up of players selected to finish the task in the best possible manner.
‘‘I will apply more attacking tactics compared to the previous action because one of the problems I have identified is interpreting every opportunity into goals, so attacking will be priority and we will seek to get as many goals as possible from every move created,’’ he added.
The absence of veteran goalkeeper, S. Kumar, 39, due to a thigh injury, would surely be a major loss for the national squad, but the task of protecting the goal mouth would fall into the able hands of Mohd Hairi Abdul Rahman and Mohd Hafizuddin Othman.
Other than performing in front of their own supporters, Malaysia, which comprised experienced players such as Captain Muhd Sukri Abdul Mutalib, Muhammad Razie Abd Rahim, Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin and Faizal Saari would give an advantage to meet the target of the Malaysian Hockey Confederation to emerge as champions. — Bernama
