ALL HOPES ON MANCHESTER

The main event of this year is getting under way for the Azerbaijani women's hockey team in Manchester (England) - the European field hockey championship, where places in the Olympic Games in Beijing (China) will be up for grabs.

Chances of success

Before their trip to the UK, Pakistani specialist Tahir Zaman's team had their last test at an international tournament in Lithuania where our team celebrated their victories in matches with the local national team and Belarus.

In the continental championship, the Azerbaijani hockey players will be playing in Group B in which their rivals are Germany, Spain and Ukraine. In Group A, Holland, England, Ireland and Italy will be playing each other. The Azerbaijani national team will play its first match in the group stage against the German hockey players. After a one-day break, Tahir Zaman's team will meet Spain, while, in the last round of the group stage, our hockey players will play Ukraine. According to the schedule, the teams that take first and second places in their groups will go through to the semi-finals. The finalists in the European championship will be automatically granted the right to participate in the Games of 2008, while another Olympic place will be played for in the match for third place between the teams that lose the semi-finals.

The main task of our team is to get into the semi-finals, the Azerbaijani national women's team coach, Tahir Zaman, said. "We will do everything possible to get into the semi-finals of the European championship, this is our main task," Tahir Zaman said in an interview with R+ before the trip. "We know that this is not an easy task, because we will have to confront strong teams. But I am sure that every player will be working really hard and I hope and believe that they will not disappoint our rivals. We have rememeber that the Azerbaijani national team is in 15th place on the world rating list, while our rivals are the leading teams of the world. But I think that our hockey players have a good chance of success."

As for the latest tournament in Lithuania, the Pakistani believes that it was just right. "This tournament was good in terms of preparation, and we gave our young players the maximum opportunity to play. Thanks to our experience in Lithuania, we discovered mistakes in the run-up to our trip to Manchester, which will come in handy. We gained victories over two national teams and came first," Tahir Zaman says. "In Lithuania we also paid special attention to the creation of goal-scoring chances from short corner shots, which we did not do so well before. In this regard, I issued an instruction to score mainly from short corner shots. However, the national teams of Lithuania and Belarus are not leading teams, like Germany or Spain. But I feel that we have achieved certain success in this aspect of play. On the whole, we have prepared thoroughly for the European championship and hope that we will manage to win, or at least draw, in the first match with Germany, which will allow us to get into the semi-finals. Before our trip, we studied our rivals carefully and looked at their weaknesses and strengths."

Only one chance

It will be recalled that in case of failure in Manchester, the Azerbaijani hockey players will have a chance to fight for an Olympic place at a licensed tournament in Baku. "But we are not even thinking about the Baku tournament and we are bracing ourselves for Manchester as the last chance to win a chance to participate in the Beijing Olympics. We tell our hockey players that they have only one chance to get to the Olympics - only through the European championship," Tahir Zaman observed. "We will set off to Manchester a few days before the start of the continental championship, which will be good for the acclimatization of our hockey players. We have asked the English and Dutch teams to hold friendly matches in Manchester, but they rejected our requests. We also tried to agree on matches with Ireland and Italy, but as before, we did not get a positive answer."

One of the biggest problems of our team is their inability to hold a lead to the very end. Because of their weaker physical condition, the Azerbaijani hockey players used to lose in the last minutes of matches; this happened in the Champions Cup and in the Ataholding tournament. "We have been working very hard on physical training during our training exercises in Masalli, and I think that we will not have problems with this any more. At the European championship, we will be using slightly different tactics, which I hope will help us in Manchester. The most important thing for us now is to learn to defend to the very end. Also, we do not intend to bring in a lot of new players for the time being, because there is no-one to replace the older players with," Tahir Zaman said.

We should say that, in the run-up to the continental championship, the Azerbaijani national women's team was reinforced by six hockey players from Korea who, Tahir Zaman thinks, will help the successful performance of our team. "They will all play for Azerbaijan's national team, and all problems with their documents have already been solved. And the Korean hockey players themselves also want to represent Azerbaijan in the international arena," the Pakistani specialist added. "I think the Koreans will be useful in Manchester because they can withstand rival attacks and tough pressure. They joined our national team only recently, but are becoming more and more integrated into the team. The atmosphere in the national team is friendly, and I think that in Manchester we will find a common language and establish cooperation between them and the remaining Azerbaijani hockey players.

P.S.While this issue of the magazine was being prepared for print, a report came in that the British embassy in Azerbaijan had denied visas to six Korean woman hockey players. The embassy returned their documents "due to lack of conformity with the requirements of British immigration legislation". In the meantime, according to the national federation of field hockey, a positive outcome may be observed in the matter of visas being issued. After intervention by Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry, the British embassy requested written guarantees that the national federation assumes entire responsibility for the stay and return of the Azerbaijani hockey players of Korean origin. The Azerbaijani side has provided the guarantees and is waiting for visas to be issued.