“The key is not the will to win…
everybody has that. It is the will to
prepare to win that is important.”
- Bobby Knight
Field hockey, Pakistan’s national sport, rose to popularity during the British Raj. The Pakistan Hockey Federation came into being in 1948, following the independence of Pakistan in 1947. Prior to this, players from what is now Pakistan had competed internationally alongside players from what is now India. Cricket, owing to its wild popularity is mostly falsely assumed, to be Pakistan’s national sport, especially since hockey’s degeneration as a sport in the country. Pakistan three gold medals in Olympic Games (in 1960,1968,1984) along with the Hockey World Cup- a record four times (in 1971,1978,1982 and 1994). The national team was a force to reckon with and had booked a place in the annals of hockey history. However, Pakistani hockey now only seems to face disparity. In 2015, they suffered an embarrassing loss at the hands of minnows Ireland. The defeat ensured a first: Pakistan failure to qualify for Olympics hockey. The last time Pakistan won the Hockey Champions trophy was in 1994. Since 1998, Pakistan has made it to the final only once, when it lost to 2-0 to Germany in 2014. 2018 too was no different. The sport that had brought home the World Cup, now failed to win a single major tournament.