Former champions Pakistan’s geared up for the high-octane Pool D clash against Belgium on Saturday by clipping the wings of New Zealand this morning following a 4-0 victory in the Men’s Hockey Junior World Cup match at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil.
Pakistan rode on the sheer individual brilliance of Arshad Liaqat and team captain Shahid Hannan against a New Zealand outfit to score two goals in the first half. Arshad, a member of the senior team, took advantage of their dominance by blasting the ball past goalkeeper Hayden Ganley in the 19th minute for the lead.
A prolific forward, Arshad who played in the Hangzhou Asian Games, Junior Asia Cup in Oman and Sultan of Johor Cup in Johor Bahru recently, 10 minutes later displaying another of his magical touches when he dummy a defender and swept a powerful drive to the right of Hayden. The ball skimmed into the lower half of the net, and the 2023 Asia Cup silver medalist went on to hold a 2-0 lead.
The Green Shirts, who rallied back from a two-goal deficit to force a 3-3 draw against the Dutch on Tuesday, further punished the Junior Black Sticks through their 18-year-old Shahid via a penalty corner conversion. two minutes into the third quarter.
And if that was not enough to dispose New Zealand, Arshad, who is dubbed ‘The Joker’ in the team by head coach Roelant Oltmans, grabbed the limelight by craving out a hat-trick with a 54th minute field goal as the Pakistanis went on to register a convincing 4-0 victory.
Pakistan now goes top of Pool D with four points, but the Belgium-Netherlands match later in the evening will eventually determine the table toppers for today. Should the Belgians win, they go top with six points.
In an earlier match, South Korea humbled Canada 4-1 to enhance their chances of qualifying from Pool C for the quarter-finals.
Canada’s Robin Thind scored first for his side in the 24th minute, but Dohyun Lim converted three penalty corners and a penalty stroke to put the Korean 4-1 ahead as the match progressed into the third quarter.
In their opening JWC match last Tuesday, Canada lost 0-7 against Spain, and India triumphed 4-2 over South Korea. The Spaniards lead Pool C with three points, followed by India (3) and South Korea (3). The Indians will play Spain later tonight.
Roelant Oltmans, Pakistan coach, said: “Yesterday we played better than today. But of course, with back-to-back matches and playing at 11am today, we faced severe humidity. It was around 32 degrees today, which made it difficult for both teams to play. But, of course, we should be happy with the scoreline as we scored at a couple of important moments during the game.
Ahmad (Liaqat) was on fire. Furthermore, the most important thing was to win this match and to keep our opportunity to qualify for the quarters. We know Belgium and the Netherlands will make it very tough for us. So, we wait till later this evening to know what we need to do when we play Belgium on Saturday.
Aaron Ford, New Zealand coach, said: “It was a frustrating match. I thought it would be a lot closer match between us. We gave away too many chances for Pakistan to score goals. It was also unfortunate that we got one goal, and it was overturned.
But we rallied back into the game and obtained a total of six penalty corners. I think the players played well as the match progressed, but Pakistan was also coming at us strongly. We were not expecting this kind of score, but actually winning it.
In sports you have to deal with it when the chips are down and fight back. Not mourn about the defeat. We have a last pool match against the Netherlands, and that match is going to be another tough one.”
Geoffrey Matthews, Canada coach, said: “It was a tough loss. I thought we played well in the first half with discipline. But we gave away too many penalty corners. At the end of the day, we must score to win matches.
The Koreans are a strong side. When we went 1-0 up, I think the players lost their shape, got overexcited, and lost it. The Koreans probably heightened the urgency with clinical performance. It was tough to get back as we have a pretty young group here.”
Seo Young Jang, South Korea coach, said: “We wanted to play well for a win. We knew it is going to be tough qualifying for the quarterfinals if we don’t start winning our matches. We started slow in the first quarter and recovered quickly to score four goals by the third quarter. It was a good match for us.
Our next match is against Spain and they are among the strongest teams in the world. We have watched videos of Spain’sprevious matches. They won big (7-0) against Canada, and we will do our best to play a good game against them. We have never played Spain before, and this will be a good opportunity for our players against a strong opposition
