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KARACHI: Pakistan's world record goal scorer Sohail Abbas said on Saturday that the national team was improving under Dutch Van dan Michael and they will be in good shape before London Olympics 2012.
“The Pakistan hockey team is showing improvement and heading in the right direction for next year's Olympic Games,” he told APP in an interview here on his return after a month-long European tour.
“It was a training tour and our coach told us not to worry about the results and play to our potential,” he said.
“The coach tried different combinations and is interested in developing the structure of the team ahead of the Champions Trophy and the Olympics,” he pointed out.
“Result wise it was not be very impressive tour but the boys learnt a lot by playing against the best European teams like Germany, Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium and Ireland,” Sohail said.
He rued the lack of international games that the national hockey team gets to play due to the busy schedules of foreign teams and security reasons in the country.
“Our hockey problem is that we were not playing many games against the Europeans and because of the security problem these teams are not touring our country,” Sohail Abbas, who mostly played at half back position, said.
The 34-year-old said that because of his vast international experience, the coach was using him in the midfield to feed the forwards and absorb the opponent's attacks.
Commenting on his fitness, Sohail Abbas said as per the test carried out by the team trainer, he was among the top four.
He said that the senior players and former Pakistan captains Shakeel Abbasi, Rehan Butt, Salman Akbar and Waseem Ahmed played well during the tour.
“But as far as his and other seniors fitness was concerned it was upto the selectors and team management to decide their fate,” he added.
However he expressed his eagerness to continue playing until the next Olympics to bring honor and glory to the country.
“During our stay in Netherlands, the team players went through various tests and a psychologist also spent time with the players,” he said.
He said that through a scientific fitness players are updating their trainer and coach about their fitness with a special meter which transferring all the information of players via internet.
About the junior players he said Muhammad Rizwan, Muhammad Rashid and Muhammad Irfan performed well.
Abbas said on the advice of the coach, he was also providing specialized training to full backs in penalty corner drills.
