KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 (Bernama) — The current national hockey squad can only be described as a “national team” but not an “international quality team,” said former Malaysian Olympian Maninderjit Singh.
He shared this opinion as he believes that only three veteran players - Marhan Jalil (34), Faizal Saari (33), and Fitri Saari (31) - deserve to be called international level players.
“These team is no more an international quality team, only national team. Now there's a hollow in the middle because out of three Junior World Cup cycles, out of 54 players only five are in the senior team, 49 are no longer around. At the 2024 Sultan of Johor Cup (SOJC), we lost all the matches.
“Now looking at this scenario, how can we qualify for the Olympics? I don’t see in this team we can qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles (LA) Olympics because the US (United States) have taken one slot, chances are very slim,” he said during the SAMBANG podcast produced by the Sports Writers Association of Malaysia (SAM) titled The Status of Malaysian Hockey on the International Stage and Prospects for LA28.
The former national player who competed in the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympics, said that the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) must urgently initiate a development programme aimed at competing in the Doha Asian Games 2030 and the Brisbane Olympics 2032.
He emphasised that this should not happen only after the LA Olympics nor should it be treated as an ad-hoc programme while questioning the current activities and progress of the Under-15 (U-15), U-17, and U-19 teams.
He also pointed out another dilemma as to who will coach these young players as there is no development programme for local coaches and an over-reliance on foreign expertise.
“You have hopes on 25 foreign consultants, you forget the locals. Where are the local coaches? Nobody knows modern hockey,” he said.
He added that when hiring new coaches, the selection should not be based solely on their resumes as the most crucial factor is their ability to build a team from scratch and lead it to success while incorporating scientific methods in their coaching.
Maninderjit said that the decline in the national hockey squad’s performance began six to seven years ago and he personally started feeling concerned as early as 2015 onwards because he could see that the future was not bright.
— BERNAMA
