Happy New Year 2026 to all my ardent readers and supporters. Firstly apology for not been writing as often as possible since busy with work, family, broadcasting life and managing the Persatuan Veteran Hoki Sultan Ahmad Shah above 50 for the Asia Cup 2025 in Hong Kong and for the first time ever in the history we became the ASIA CHAMPIONS! What a satisfaction & honor to be part of this team.
 |
| CHAMPION OF ASIA - HISTORICAL MILESTONE ACHIEVED - A TRULY MALAYSIAN TEAM |
Anyway for everyone’s knowledge that I would not be involved as withdraw from managing the above 50 for the WMH Rotterdam World Cup 2026 in July 2026 as no clarity of support from the Association and its not proper that the financial burden is carried by the players and it will create the similar dilemma as the good player couldn’t afford but the average players makes it as he could afford it, with that, to get a medal in WMH 2026 will be tough, therefore if I am involved my objective is to achieve podium finish as that is always been my way of life in hockey – no nonsense but results oriented personality.
Okay let’s get back to our original topic of
the day…
After the failure to many Olympics, when the new changes were made with the hope that we would
achieve some prominent results in World Hockey, but in my view as stated below:
Olympics
Last Olympic Malaysia played was in Sydney 2000
– and failed 6 cycles
As for the LA28 – I would officially announced
that we would not qualify after reading the qualification process as announced
by IOC – Olympic is an IOC product and not belong to FIH as many were voicing
about the quota and fairness in the qualification whenever we fail to be
Olympics.
Heard that for 2032 Brisbane Olympics – the
teams will be reduced from 12 to 10.
World Cups - 2014,
2018 & 2023
Here’s a summary of Malaysia’s men’s national
field hockey team (Speedy Tigers) performances at the FIH Men’s Hockey World
Cup in 2014, 2018 and 2023:
Hockey World Cup 2014
— The Hague, Netherlands
Malaysia finished last place 12th place in the
tournament but credit must be given because qualified after failing to qualify
for 2006 & 2010 WC and FIH maintained 12 teams WC.
Hockey World Cup 2018
— Bhubaneswar, India
Malaysia finished second last 15th place among
the 16 teams. Lucky to qualify because FIH expanded from 12 to 16 teams but we
finished 2nd last – first team to arrive and came back in 4 days
back home.
Hockey World Cup 2023 — Bhubaneswar & Rourkela, India
Technically, Malaysia finished second last too
at 13th place because no classification matches for 13-16 position and its
joint at 13 & 15 with 2 teams each. Lucky to qualify because FIH expanded
from 12 to 16 teams – if 12 teams WC, Malaysia would not be playing in Olympics
and World Cups too.
*as for Women Hockey – we would never qualify
for Olympics and World Cup with our current strength and plans. Good for Sea
Games and finishing at 5th In Asia Games and now with FIH expanded
Junior World Cup from 16 to 24 teams – Malaysia Junior qualified for 2025 JWC
but ended number 22 out of 24 teams.
Men’s Junior World Cup
– 2016, 2021, 2023 & 2025
2016 Junior
World Cup – Malaysian Junior failed to qualify via Jr Asia Cup and thanks to
Pakistan Juniors pulled out and Malaysian Juniors got the wild card to
participate.
Malaysia
finished 11th place at the 2016 Men’s FIH Hockey Junior World Cup in Lucknow,
India.
2021 Junior World Cup
At the 2021 Junior World Cup in
Bhubaneswar, India, Malaysia finished 8th place. Due to COVID19 – many top
teams pulled out – ENG, AUS, NZ etc…
2023 Junior World Cup
Malaysia hosted the 2023 Men’s FIH
Hockey Junior World Cup in Kuala Lumpur (5–16 Dec).
As hosts, Malaysia competed in the
tournament. According to historical results, they finished 12th among 16 teams.
2025 Junior World Cup – worst ever
position No13.
At the 2025 Junior World Cup in
India (Tamil Nadu), Malaysia finished 13th place after the classification
matches, including a penalty shootout win over Japan.
As for the Asia Continental
Championship – our latest results:
Asian Games 2022
Finished worst ever No 6 placing
Asia Champion Trophy 2024
No 6 – last placing of 6 teams
Last 3 Junior Asia Cup event
results:
2015 – No 5
2023 – No 4
2024 – No 4
Other Results
FIH Nation Cup
2024 – no 7th of 8th
– second last in Poland
2025 – in KL finished no 6 out of 8
teams – 2nd last
Last 2 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup – no
podium achievements
2024 – Finished 4th out
of 6
2025 – Finished 4th out
of 6
Last 3 Sultan Johor Cup U21 – no
podium achievements
2023 – Finished 7th of 8
teams
2024 – Finished 6th out of 6
2025 – Finished 5th out of 6
The 2024 Men's Asian Champions Trophy
Malaysia finished last - 6th of 6 teams
Sea Games
In our books in our
playing days- we use to call this games “The Mickey Mouse tournament and Goodwill
Games” based on Asean spirit. But today Sea Games results sounds like winning a
medal at World Hockey level. Those days – U18 team will play with 4 or 5 senior
players to win the Gold.
This recent Sea Games
2025 – should get 6 Gold Medals but came back with 3 only. Interesting to read in Media, when fail to deliver we give full of excuses but why didn't all these excuses were laid and taken into account before promising a Gold Medal.
FIH provided 2 slots for Asia rather
than 1 slot as previously and Iran always take this one slot – and Malaysia
qualified for 2025 Croatia Indoor WC
2025 Indoor WC – finished 2nd
last 11th of 12 teams by beating Trinidad & Tobago
Lost 2 Sea Games gold Medals in 2023
& 2025 is an unacceptable
Hockey5s
My view – it’s an
complementary and exhibition hockey sports – it will not be sustainable in
years to come as IOC were planning to replace field hockey to Hockey5s but the
idea was shot down many years ago.
Our Domestic Competition – like MHL/JHL/SUKMA/Razak
Cup
To be honest after
seeing and doing a comparison of the other top playing Nations – firstly their
Calendar is fixed and managed at least one Olympic Cycles (4years) and their
quality and standards are way to high compare to ours.
In summary – domestic
competitions dictates the quality of our current National Teams.
Will give 3 out of 10
points. Firstly, we are no longer in World Hockey Map – playing in Olympics and
finishing top 10 in World Cups. We are only qualifying to World Cup either
Senior of Junior due to FIH expanded the number of teams over the years – no longer
the best 12 Teams for FIH Competition – now 16 for World Cup and 24 for JWC.
The real indicators
of World Hockey is to play in FIH Pro League – that is the real facts on the
actual standard – even Pakistan is struggling to perform.
In Asia – only India
could compete against the World best – the rest like Korea, Japan, Malaysia,
China & Pakistan are far away from World Hockey standards.
Even Wales &
China could beat us nowadays. Scotland, Chile & Austria may be the next
forces that could get a win against us soon.
Our Rankings has
dropped to 15 in June this year and now seating at no 13. May drop further if
we don’t get the reasonable results in 2026 competitions.
What are the important tournaments in 2026?
Senior Team – Road to 2026 WC & LA28 Olympics
- 2026
FIH World Cup Qualifying Round in March 2026 – Ismalia, Egypt to host. Our Group will be
GRP B with Pak, China and Austria – top 2 to SF and may meet Eng/Japan – will write
soon on our chances.
- 2026
World Cup – Belgium & Holland in August 2026
- 2026
Asian Games – Nagoya – September
- FIH
Nation Cup – TBC – may be in Europe and in June
- Asian
Champions Trophy – TBC
- Sultan
Azlan Shah Cup 2026
LA28 – will write a
separate piece but no chance for Malaysian hockey to qualify – two doors to LA28 - the
easier door is to win Gold in the 2026 Nagoya Asian Games but beating India outside
India is very tough and the rising stars like Japan & China is doing well
with their International programs with Pakistan playing in Pro League and the dark horse Korea where Malaysia lost
to Korea back to back in recent competition doesn’t augur well. First have to
be in Finals and then the slot….2nd Door is shut for us – based on
new format approved by IOC.
Junior Team
-
Junior
Asia Cup – Top 6 to qualify for 2027 Junior World Cup – TBC
-
Sultan
of Johor Cup 2026
Asia Cup U18 – Japan
-
Will
be held in June in Kakamigahara
Indoor Asia Cup 2026 –
Qualifying Round to FIH Indoor World Cup 2027 – TBC- Top 2 qualifies – with Kazak
and Indo on the rise – we may not make it to next Indoor WC.
Wishing everyone the very best – especially all the stakeholders in hockey and to the fans don’t sip into the perception facts, when you understand the World Hockey, then we will realized the actual situation and the real standards where we are in world hockey map – from World we dropped to Asia and struggling there too at Asia level to achieve podium and when at Sea Games we promised 6 Golds but failed miserably.
Anyway – nothing personal, just concern as Former International who wants Malaysia to be on World Hockey map in years to come but looking at it will end with this famous statement - Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Happy New Year Everyone and have a blessed New Year ahead…
Hope you enjoyed the above readings - and one thing you have to do is to analyze - are we on track to qualify for LA28 Olympics and finishing top 10 at World Cup stages - Senior or Junior level or go down further in World Hockey map. As for Indoor WC 2026 we will remain at 10 or 11 but can we qualify, and for JWC27 we will also qualify - 24 teams but where we will finish?
Godspeed...
MANINDERJIT SINGH (MIKE) - FORMER OLYMPIAN & WORLD CUPPER
