Islamabad, Pakistan – The clock was ticking away, and only eight minutes remained for the Pakistani hockey team to break an embarrassing pattern of decline in a sport it dominated for decades.
But New Zealand forward Hugo Inglis equalised the score in their qualifying match in Oman in January. Then, with just two minutes left for the final whistle, Scott Boyde made the winning hit. New Zealand had won 3-2.
And, with that, ended Pakistan’s dream of an Olympic berth – its third miss in a row.
“It was an incredibly sad day, the most heartbreaking of my career so far. To be so close and yet so far once again was difficult to get over,” Pakistan’s ace forward, Rana Waheed Ashraf, told Al Jazeera.
For decades, Pakistan were a dominant force in the sport. They have won three Olympic golds (1960, 1968 and 1984), as many silvers (1956, 1964 and 1972), and two bronze medals (1976 and 1992), making it a near-permanent presence at the games podium.
Pakistan also won an unmatched four of the first eight hockey World Cup tournaments.
But they failed to qualify for the 2014 and 2023 World Cups and finished a poor 12th among 16 teams in the 2018 tournament. In the 2010 World Cup, they finished last among 12 participants.
They are currently ranked 16th in world hockey. And with Pakistan missing out on the Olympics for the third time in a row, questions are mounting: What caused the downfall of one of the world’s most successful hockey-playing nations, and does it have a plan to recover its lost glory?
‘It will take a long time’
The last time Pakistan won an Olympic medal in hockey was a bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Games. The last time they were in contention for an Olympic medal was in Sydney in 2000, losing to the hosts in the third-place playoff.
In fact, 2024 marks four decades since Pakistan last won a hockey gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
“It will take a long time before Pakistan can get back to the position it once occupied. In Pakistan, people look for medals instead of developing processes and systems. That is the biggest problem,” renowned Dutch coach Rolent Oltmans told Al Jazeera.
Oltmans, who led the Netherlands to World Cup victory in 1998 and had previous stints as Pakistan coach in 2003 and 2018, is among those tasked with making the South Asian country a top hockey-playing nation again.
This year, Oltmans was recruited to train the Pakistani team for two key tournaments: the Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia, where they reached the finals, and the FIH Nations Cup in Poland, where they reached the semifinals.
But Oltmans says short-term coaching tenures cannot ensure continued success for the team.
“If you fail in a tournament, you cannot change things immediately. There must be continuity and a plan,” he said, adding that it needs a good talent scouting apparatus and a better understanding of how the game has evolved through the years.
“If Pakistan wants to get back to the top, they must have at least a four-year continuous plan,” he said.
‘Victim of own success’
Salman Akbar led Pakistan to their last major hockey win, in the 2010 Asian Games, where he was also declared the best goalkeeper. Five years after retiring from the sport in 2013, Japan hired him as their goalkeeping coach and won the 2018 Asian Games gold.
Akbar believes Pakistan is a victim of its own past success and that many of its hockey greats, who moved into the sport’s administration, failed to deliver.
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