World champs Germany invited for Sultan Azlan Shah Cup

KUALA LUMPUR: Reigning world champions Germany are among the top teams that will be invited for the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Ipoh in July.

National coach Arul Selvaraj wants all the four semi-finalist teams in the recent World Cup and India to be invited for the annual tournament.

The three semi-finalist teams are runners-up Belgium, the Netherlands and Australia, who finished third and fourth respectively in the World Cup, which was played in Rourkela and Bhubaneswar, India last month.

India finished ninth while Arul's men finished joint 13 with France in the World Cup.

Arul said they need to play quality matches in preparation for the Hangzhou Asian Games from Sept 23 to Oct 8.

"We are trying to get the Germans, Belgians, Netherlands, Australia and India to play in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup.

"Our focus is to play high tempo matches. The players need to be put under pressure by playing high tempo matches.

"We need quality matches in preparation for the Asian Games, which is an important assignment for us.

"The European Cup is scheduled in August (from 17-29 in Monchengladbach, Germany) and these teams definitely need to play matches in preparation for the tournament.

"Furthermore, we will save a lot of time by travelling overseas if these top teams can play in the tournament in Ipoh.

"That's our plan and we will put in the proposal to bring these teams. But if these teams cannot come then we will look into other alternatives," said Arul, who guided Malaysia to maiden Sultan Azlan Shah Cup title in Ipoh last year.

The Sultan Azlan Shah Cup will be the last tournament before Speedy Tigers feature in the Asian Games.

The gold medallist of the Asian Games will gain an automatic ticket for the 2024 Paris Olympics. And Malaysia has not featured in the Olympics since Sydney in 2000.

Malaysia have never won gold in the Asian Games and they would face a daunting task against India, South Korea and Japan, who have won the gold in Asiad.

Malaysia twice finished runners-up in the Asian Games in 2010 Guangzhou to Pakistan and in 2018 Jakarta to Japan.

Arul said that Tom Drowley has done a good job in the players fitness level and former international S. Kuhan will be brought in to help improve the penalty corner variations for the Asian Games.

"There are a lot of good things I can see in the team but we still need to work on the little things. I have been hard on them for one and half years and I need to continue to encourage and build them up for tournaments," said Arul.

Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) president Datuk Seri Subahan Kamal said that they would bring in all the experts to help the Speedy Tigers in preparation for the Asian Games.