The appointment yesterday of van Den Heuvel came after months of negotiations and discussions with various foreign coaches following Pakistan’s bottom-place finish in the World Cup in New Delhi earlier this year.

Shahnaz Sheikh, a member of the Pakistan team that won the Olympic silver medal at Munich in 1972 and bronze Montreal in 1976, claimed that the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) had hired a "third-grade" coach, even though van Den Heuvel had guided the Netherlands to the bronze medal at the World Cup.
 
He said: "The Dutch coach would not have a magic wand that he can use to improve the team in just four months for the Asian Games [in Guangzhou in November].

"I think our team needs to polish its skills and get physical training but if the federation hires a full-time European coach, it shows that the team will start playing drill hockey which is the opposite of our style of playing."

Islahuddin Siddiqui, a former team-mate of Sheikh's, added: "Pakistan has been hiring Dutch coaches for the last few years but none of them produced good results."

But Zeeshan Ashraf, who captained Pakistan at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the World Cup in Delhi, was behind the appointment of van Den Heuvel.

He said: "It was necessary to get a professional coach for more than a year.

"Previously, the federation would keep switching coaches but it is a good sign that a coach will spend sufficient time with the team and will understand the players."


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