The Republic’s men’s national team are bracing themselves for a rough couple of weeks in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.
Krishnan Vijayan and his charges will compete in the nine-team Men’s Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) Cup 2022 from 11-20 March, where a top-three finish will secure a spot at the 2022 Asia Cup alongside the likes of Asian giants India, Korea and Pakistan but the team are firmly focused on taking one game at a time.
This is no fall back onto one of sports greatest cliches.
The team has been hamstrung by pandemic restrictions in their preparations, then slammed by the virus proper, with five players from the expanded 20-man squad (as well as an additional two players on standby) – a move to help team cope with the possibility of losing players to the virus – testing positive and ruled out of the tournament before the team departed for Jakarta on 8 Mar.
“In terms of training and preparation, I really couldn’t ask for much more from the boys. We’ve been training six times a week since January, and they’ve really embraced the mantra of no pain, no gain,” said Vijayan.
“But we haven’t been able to test what we’ve worked on because we haven’t been able to play friendly games since the team went to play a few matches in Kuala Lumpur last year.”
Singapore will line up in Pool B, alongside defending champions, Bangladesh, Iran, Oman and hosts Indonesia. There are only four teams in Pool A, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Uzbekistan, following China’s withdrawal on 9 Mar.
“To make things worse we have two key senior players who are unable to travel, our leaders Ashriq Ferdaus and Enrico Marican, and then to lose so many senior players puts us in a bad situation,” he added.
“More than half of our 17-man squad have less than 10 caps each.”
While circumstances mean the Singapore Hockey Federation has not set targets for the men at the AHF Cup, Vijayan hopes his charges bring the same approach they’ve demonstrated in training sessions to the tournament.
“I’m personally targeting a fifth-placed finish – and I’m aware that we’ll only have four outfield substitutes to work with in what I expect will be high-intensity matches at the tournament – but we are going to drive forward as hard as we can.
“We have our backs against the wall and nothing to lose, so we’re going to give it a good go. And if the boys stay as united as they have been as we prepared for the AHF Cup, who knows what the boys can pull off?” said Vijayan, who believes that if his charges can pull off results against Bangladesh and Oman, the Singapore men will be in with a shot for a top four finish.
But Vijayan adamant that the Singapore contingent only focuses on the match immediately ahead, and takes every precaution that the thin squad does not get further hit by the virus – even if it comes at the expense of match practice.
“We’ve been asked to play a friendly match by Sri Lanka, a team that is not competing in our pool, before the tournament starts, and while that will help our cause, we must take extra precaution to ensure that we don’t lose any more players to the virus,” he said.
“The remaining players in the team have done a fantastic job keeping us all united, and it is clear to me that they are willing to fight for each other on the pitch – I’m counting on this spirit to drive the team forward, and I have a good feeling about it.”
Singapore will face Iran on Friday (11 Mar), before taking on Indonesia (12 Mar), Bangladesh (14 Mar), Oman (15 Mar) in a challenging fixture schedule before the semi-finals and final scheduled for 19 and 20 Mar.
