KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 -- The absence of five 'big names' from the national hockey team preparing for the 2020 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament has paved the way for junior players to prove their worth, said national forward Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin Tengku Abdul Jalil.
Last Tuesday, head coach Roelant Oltmans dropped five seniors - brothers Faizal and Fitri Saari, Mohamad Sukri Abdul Mutalib, Nabil Fikri Mohd Noor and Joel Van Huizen - and brought in 11 new faces when he named the 34-man squad for centralised training, which begins today.
The Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament will be held from April 11-18 and the final squad will be named at the end of this month.
Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin, who plays for Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) in the Malaysian Hockey League (MHL), added it was possible that Oltmans’ decision to drop some of the seniors could lead to an improved performance by the national squad.
"This is the best chance for the youngsters to shine as all this while we've been relying on the same five players.
"If we retain the same set of players, the team may not be able to reach greater heights. So, this is the best way for the team to improve, especially the youngsters, at the international level,” he told reporters at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil today.
“It's clear that I'm one of the three seniors left in the squad and our role is to guide the youngsters to take their game to the highest level,” added Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin, who guided UniKL to a ‘treble’ in the recently-concluded MHL.
Oltmans, meanwhile, is satisfied with what he saw on the first day of centralised training.
“I must say I haven’t seen all the results, but it looks promising... better than what I’ve seen in the past. We play every day, we play small matches, we play big matches, so for sure we will have a very good idea about the quality of the players,” he said.
The men’s squad failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in July and the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup marks Malaysia’s early preparation to hunt for a spot at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
-- BERNAMA
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