Pakistan in 2026: the return of the four-time world champion

In the final minute of the semi-final in Ismailia, Egypt, everything was at stake. Pakistan led Japan 4-3, and in the event of a draw a shoot-out would decide who went to the World Cup and who stayed in the wilderness for another eight years. Then Japan won a penalty stroke. The young goalkeeper Ali Raza stretched out his right foot, kept the ball out, and in that single moment brought the most decorated world champion of all time back to the highest stage.

This dossier tells the story behind that return. It is about a country that literally invented the World Cup and won it four times, about a generation that grew up with empty stands and empty coffers, and about the honest question hanging over the tournament: can Pakistan turn its comeback into more than a symbolic round of applause, or will August lay bare the gap between a golden past and an impoverished present?

World ranking and qualification

Pakistan comes to the World Cup as the outsider within its own continental top. Among the Asian teams only India ranks higher, and on the global list the Green Shirts have slipped to well outside the second tier they occupied for decades. Their ranking shows how large the gap has become to the countries that dominate the tournament.

Qualification itself was an ordeal. Because of the regional tensions with India, Pakistan missed the 2025 Asia Cup in Rajgir, where the continental title earned a direct World Cup ticket. The federation therefore had to take a detour: first a play-off against Bangladesh in Dhaka (8-2 and 8-0), then the FIH qualifier in Ismailia in March 2026. There Pakistan stayed unbeaten in the group, with wins over China (5-4), Malaysia (5-3) and Austria (4-2), and forced the coveted ticket in the semi-final against Japan. The final was then lost 1-4 to England, a match that immediately showed how far Pakistan still is from the European top. For a country that missed the World Cup entirely in 2014 and 2023, the return was already the victory in itself.

Every World Cup appearance by Pakistan

Pakistan is the only nation to become world champion four times, and at the same time a team that has sunk deep since the turn of the century. The table shows the full World Cup history, including the two absences that mark the decline.

The four world titles

The glory years begin in Barcelona, where Pakistan won the very first edition of the World Cup in 1971, a tournament the country had helped conceive through federation president Air Marshal Nur Khan. In 1978 the title followed in Buenos Aires, in 1982 the third in Bombay with a 3-1 win over West Germany, and in 1994 the fourth in Sydney after penalty strokes against the Netherlands. Between those highlights there was also bitter loss: the 1990 World Cup final was lost on home soil in Lahore, before a sold-out home crowd. Alongside the World Cup titles the record holds three Olympic golds (1960, 1968, 1984), three Champions Trophy titles and a record eight Asian Games titles. No country has won the World Cup more often.

Recent editions

The last two stories are those of the decline. In 2018 in Bhubaneswar Pakistan finished twelfth without a single win, and in 2023 the country was absent from the entry list for the second time. The turning point dates roughly from the introduction of artificial turf from the 1970s onwards, which placed speed and physicality above the Asian stick skills and short combination play. Pakistan could not lay down the expensive synthetic pitches on a large scale, and the base beneath the production of world-class players crumbled. The 2026 World Cup is therefore the first return to the main tournament since 2018.

Philosophy and approach

The build-up to the World Cup was dominated by a coaching carousel that symbolises the administrative chaos around the team. The defensive former international Manzoor ul-Hassan, from the bronze-winning Olympic team of 1976, led the aftermath of qualification and the disastrous Pro League campaign, and was honest about his side's core weakness. "Deep defence is our team's weak area," he told Dawn. "If we scored three goals in a match, we conceded four." After the pointless Pro League run the Pakistan Hockey Federation intervened and, in early July 2026, appointed the 70-year-old Dutchman Herman Kruis as overarching coaching adviser and head coach, on a two-year contract. Kruis, who had previously coached India among others, joined only late: at the squad announcement he was still in the Netherlands on a preparatory assignment and would meet the team there. At the same time the PHF brought in more foreign staff, including the Dutchman Bob Johan Veldhof, assistant Chris Bowen and youth coach Adnan Zakir. For Pakistan the World Cup remains above all a learning ground on the way to the Asian Games later in 2026 and Olympic qualification for Los Angeles 2028.

Ismailia 2026: the route back to the World Cup

The qualifier in Egypt was the turning point. Under interim coach Khawaja Junaid, Pakistan won its three group matches and, in the semi-final against Japan, came back from a 1-3 deficit to 4-3, with goals from Abu Mahmood and Sufyan Khan among others and the decisive penalty-stroke save from goalkeeper Ali Raza. The young forward Afraz won the Poligras Magic Skill Award there for his technique in tight spaces. The lost final against England (1-4) did nothing to diminish the main fact: after eight years Pakistan was back.

Asian Champions Trophy 2024 and Nations Cup 2025

The build-up to it gave cautious hope. At the 2024 Asian Champions Trophy in China Pakistan took bronze, with a 5-2 win over Korea in the third-place match. A year later, at the 2025 Nations Cup in Kuala Lumpur, the team reached the final, in part after a fine comeback from 0-2 against France in the semi-final. That final was lost 6-2 to New Zealand, but the runner-up spot brought something unexpected: an invitation to the FIH Pro League.

FIH Pro League 2025-26

When New Zealand withdrew, Pakistan, as Nations Cup runner-up, was allowed to take part in the Pro League for the first time, the weekly contest between the global top. It became a harsh learning ground: Pakistan lost all sixteen of its matches, conceded 79 goals and finished last with zero points, after which it was immediately relegated again. Yet there was growth in it: against India it went down 3-4 after a late offensive, and against England the team led 1-0 for a long time and conceded only one from seventeen English penalty corners. The final standings above all show the gap.

Final FIH Pro League 2025-26 standings (men), closed on 28 June 2026 (final standings). Pakistan finished last with zero points from sixteen defeats (22 goals for, 79 against) and were relegated to the Nations Cup; Belgium became champion and qualified for Los Angeles 2028.

The staff under Kruis

The World Cup staff is led by Dutch head coach Herman Kruis, who joins the team only in the Netherlands. Confusingly, the official squad document lists the likewise Dutch Bob Johan Veldhof as head coach, whereas in the earlier staff announcement he was presented as goalkeeping coach; Chris Bowen and Adnan Zakir are the assistants and Mohammad Awais Qarni the team manager. The selection committee is led by hockey legend Samiullah Khan, the "Flying Horse", two-time world champion, who laid the basis for the World Cup group after open trials in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Above the team hangs the interim governance structure of the Pakistan Hockey Federation, since early 2026 under ad-hoc president Mohyuddin Wani, appointed by the government after months of administrative unrest.

The final World Cup squad

On 6 August 2026 the Pakistan Hockey Federation announced the final twenty-strong World Cup squad, compiled by the selectors and the new foreign staff. Abu Bakar Mahmood is the captain; the vice-captain will be named later. First-choice goalkeeper Muneeb-ur-Rehman was left out in favour of debutant Waqar, and drag flicker Nadeem Khan from Bannu also failed to make the squad (not to be confused with forward Ahmad Nadeem, who does travel).

Name spelling follows the official PHF/Dawn list; variants appear in other media. Clubs for the 2026-27 season cannot be reliably verified and are therefore omitted. Birth years and caps are indicative, based on the FIH squad of March 2026, and are rising; empty cells are unknown, not zero.

Five key players

Sufyan Khan is the face of the new Pakistan. The drag flicker from Bannu was voted FIH Rising Star of the Year in 2024, the first Pakistani ever with an FIH award. His drag flick is the team's most dangerous weapon, and he is candid about his ambition to bring back the old glory.

Abu Bakar Mahmood has since late July been the new captain. The 28-year-old forward from Faisalabad, an international since 2017, took over the armband from the fourteen-year servant Ammad Butt, who remains in the squad as a senior player. Mahmood was one of the goalscorers in the qualifier against Japan and also scored in the recent friendly series against South Korea.

Hannan Shahid is the entertainer. The forward comes from a renowned hockey family, made his senior debut at sixteen and is, according to ProPakistani, almost impossible to pin down in tight spaces. As a junior he twice won Asia's emerging talent award.

Rana Waheed Ashraf is the creative playmaker, a striker who was named Player of the Match in the semi-final of the 2025 Nations Cup and who scored in the Pro League against both Belgium and England.

Ali Raza is the young goalkeeper who secured qualification with his saved penalty stroke against Japan, and who parried several penalty corners from the Indian specialists in the Pro League. In a team with a vulnerable defence he is often the last resort.

Competition analysis by line

The system: organisation and confidence

Pakistan tries to reconcile its own identity, fast and technical combination play with phenomenal individual ball control, with the defensive organisation it so often lacked at the global top level. The previous head coach called restoring the confidence of the group even more important than tactics, and linked that to the diagnosis that the team gives away too much at the back. With the arrival of the Dutch staff around Herman Kruis, the core of the recovery plan is to defend more compactly and deeper, so that the space between the lines shrinks and the opponent gets through the centre less easily. Whether that will suffice in the short time before the World Cup against the world top is the open question.

The attack: fast transition and individual class

Pakistan's threat lies in the transition. As soon as the ball is won, the team almost always opts for the direct through-ball rather than controlled build-up, and forwards like Hannan Shahid and Afraz immediately seek the one-on-one, regardless of how many defenders surround them. It is spectacular and creates chances, but it exacts a high defensive toll: exactly the pattern the then coach described when he said the team concedes as many goals as it scores.

The penalty corner as a weapon

Where the regular build-up stalls against compact defences, the penalty corner is Pakistan's most reliable route to a goal. The attack is strongly geared towards drawing a foul in the circle, and the execution revolves around Sufyan Khan, the Bannu-born drag-flick specialist who wields the team's most dangerous weapon. Alongside him Abu Bakar Mahmood acts as a second threat who draws the first runner towards himself and thus frees up space for the clean push.

The honest caveat belongs here, not hidden away: this is a team that is structurally vulnerable at the very highest level. Pakistan lost all its matches in the Pro League and were relegated, conceded four or more goals per match at times in the closing European weeks, and lacks the physical fitness to sustain its intense playing style for sixty minutes. Against England, which awaits in Pool D, and against India, that is the scenario in which the match slips away in the final quarter. The resilience is real, but the margin is wafer-thin.

India: the match for which a continent stands still

No fixture in hockey is bigger than India against Pakistan, and in Pool D it comes to life again on 19 August in Amstelveen. The two countries have played each other more than 180 times since 1956, with Pakistan slightly ahead historically. But the present is Indian: since 2016 Pakistan has not managed to beat its neighbour, a run extended in June 2026 in the Pro League with a 4-3 defeat in London. The most painful memory remains the 10-2 at the 2023 Asian Games, the heaviest defeat in Pakistani history. On neutral ground in the Netherlands the rivalry unfolds without the bitter edges of cricket: in London both hockey teams shook hands cordially.

Yet this clash is more charged than ever. In 2025, because of the regional tensions, Pakistan withdrew from the Asia Cup in India, of all tournaments the one that earned a direct World Cup ticket, and therefore had to take the hard detour via Bangladesh and Egypt to qualify after all. August thus becomes the first World Cup meeting between the two countries in years. In their head-to-head World Cup history India leads 3-2, without a single draw, which also makes the match statistically an open account. For Pakistan it is the chance to break, at a stroke, a run of almost ten years without a win, on the biggest stage there is.

England: the pool favourite that has already struck once

England is the highest-ranked opponent in the pool and already struck in the qualifier final in Egypt (4-1). The English combine physical dominance with a feared penalty corner and are realistically out of reach for Pakistan.

Wales: the realistic chance of points

Wales is the lowest-ranked country in Pool D and therefore Pakistan's most winnable match. For any chance of the second round, a win here is virtually a prerequisite.

Asian rivals

Outside the pool, Japan, Malaysia and Korea remain the teams against which Pakistan measures itself continentally. Pakistan beat Japan (4-3) and Malaysia (5-3) in Ismailia, but the Asian pecking order is led by India.

Key players by rival

• India: Harmanpreet Singh (captain and drag flicker), Hardik Singh (midfielder), Abhishek (forward).
• England: Sam Hooper (penalty corner), Henry Croft (forward), Phil Roper (midfielder).
• Malaysia: Mohamad Akhimullah Anuar Esook (forward and penalty corner specialist).
• Japan: Ken Nagayoshi and Kazuma Murata (attacking threat).

The mentality of Pakistani men's hockey is one of pride under pressure. Every player who pulls on the shirt carries the weight of a past greater than that of any other hockey nation, and at the same time plays in a system that can barely pay him. That tension colours everything. When Sufyan Khan won his FIH award, he dedicated it to all the youngsters still playing hockey in Pakistan, with the message that Pakistani hockey is not dead and that there is no shortage of talent. It is a mentality most visible in the comebacks: back from 1-3 against Japan, back from 0-2 against France, and against India and England in the Pro League a team that refused to collapse when the balance of play had long justified it.

At the same time that resilience is born of deprivation. The players saw their allowances plummet and went on tour with borrowed money and in poor accommodation, and yet the side fought its way back to the World Cup. That says something about the culture: restoring confidence was, in the words of the then head coach, more important than tactics. Only when a player believes in himself again does his class come out of its own accord.

Hockey is officially still the national sport of Pakistan, but in practice cricket has pushed it out of the spotlight, the sponsorship money and the attention. What remains runs largely on the departmental system: teams of banks, WAPDA, the army and the navy offer players a job and a stage, and in the absence of central contracts the daily allowance on tour is often the main source of income. That system is crumbling as departments withdraw, while the shortage of artificial-turf pitches has been hollowing out the base of talent development for decades.

Yet the sport is alive, above all regionally. In Bannu, a hockey stronghold since British times that once produced Olympic champion Hameedi, according to Dawn about half the town watched the livestream of a local club final. It is from such places, and from academies like the Dar Hockey Academy of Olympic champion Tanvir Dar, which runs on private money without federation support, that the current generation emerges. The return to the World Cup is therefore widely felt at home: pay broadcaster Tapmad acquired the exclusive broadcasting rights, so that fans can see the Green Shirts live on the highest stage again for the first time in eight years.

The flip side is the administrative crisis that is never far away. The Pakistan Hockey Federation split into rival factions in 2024, an investigative report documented mismanagement around visas, hotels and grants, and only an intervention by the prime minister brought a temporary interim structure. The finances remain contradictory. During the qualifying campaign the players received a daily allowance of around forty dollars, a sharp drop from the hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars of earlier tours. For the Pro League and the World Cup the interim federation sharply raised the travel allowance again, while the domestic training-camp pay was cut to an amount that players noted even day labourers would not work for. The same investigative report described how, on an earlier tour, players ended up five to an Airbnb room because no hotel had been booked.

Pool D and the tournament format

Pakistan plays all its pool matches at the Wagener Stadium in Amstelveen, in one of the toughest pools of the tournament. The World Cup has sixteen countries, spread over four pools of four; the best two per pool advance to the second round. The widget below shows the composition of Pool D, the opponents and the schedule.

Scenario analysis: the road through the pool

The most likely scenario is elimination in the group stage. With England and India as the anointed first and second, and with Pakistan's own recent form (last and relegated in the Pro League, no win over India for years), third or fourth place in Pool D is the realistic expectation. Chief selector Samiullah Khan put it soberly: he considers a draw against India achievable, after which a win over Wales becomes possible, but he called England virtually out of reach. The second scenario therefore revolves around Wales: if Pakistan wins that match, the team stays alive and an upset against England or India could still open the door to the second round. The third, most hopeful scenario is that the return itself is the result: a team that plays with its head held high, forces a draw or win against a top nation, and thereby lends weight to the recovery story heading into the Asian Games and Los Angeles 2028.

1. Sufyan Khan's penalty corners. Pakistan's most dangerous weapon stands or falls with his drag flick. On every penalty corner, watch his position to the left of the stopper and the footwork with which he gives the ball rotation. He scored key goals in qualifying and is FIH Rising Star of the Year for a reason.

2. The comeback DNA. This season Pakistan came back from 1-3 against Japan and from 0-2 against France. It is precisely when the team is behind that it becomes dangerous. Keep an eye on the final quarter, that is when the Green Shirts can suddenly surge.

3. Goalkeeper Ali Raza under pressure. His saved penalty stroke brought Pakistan back to the World Cup, and in the Pro League he parried several penalty corners from the Indian specialists. In a team with a vulnerable defence he is often the difference between a defeat and an upset.

4. India against Pakistan on 19 August. The biggest match of the subcontinent, on neutral ground. India has been unbeaten against Pakistan since 2016; the central question is whether the Green Shirts can finally break that run. The atmosphere around this clash alone is worth watching.

5. The vulnerable deep defence. Pakistan admitted it itself: the team is weak at the back. Watch the organisation in the transition moments and how the team reacts when a top nation raises the tempo. This is where the matches against England and India will probably be decided.

6. The solo runs of Hannan Shahid and Afraz. Both forwards prefer the individual dribble, with quick turns along the backline to force a penalty corner. It was no accident that Afraz won the award for the finest skill of the tournament in Egypt.

7. Rana Waheed Ashraf as playmaker. The creative engine who scored in the Pro League against Belgium and England and was named Player of the Match at the Nations Cup. Follow him for the moments of imagination between the lines.

8. The Wales clash as a turning point. This is Pakistan's most winnable match and crucial for any chance of the second round. It is the match in which the team must show that it can not only compete against the big teams but also deliver the expected results.

9. The battle between short pass and long hit. In the build-up, watch whether Pakistan opts for the fast, technical combination play that is its hallmark, or whether under pressure it falls back on risky long balls through the middle. That difference reveals whether the team keeps its composure.

10. The context off the pitch. The coaching changes and the payment problems weigh on morale. A team that plays with devotion despite all that tells a story reaching beyond the result. That, for this Pakistan, may well be the real stake of the tournament.

Three outcome scenarios take shape. In the most likely, Pakistan drops out in the group stage, behind England and India, with the honour of the return as the biggest yield. In the second, the team beats Wales and, with an upset against a top nation, forces a place in the second round, the kind of result that gets a whole country watching hockey again. In the third, which cannot be read from the final standings, this young generation plays in such a way that the recovery becomes credible, regardless of the result, and builds on towards the Asian Games and Los Angeles 2028.

When the tournament crowns its winner in Wavre on Sunday 30 August, Pakistan will almost certainly not be among them. But for a country that invented the World Cup and won it four times, that was then absent twice and now fought its way back via Dhaka and Ismailia, mere presence in Amstelveen is a milestone. The question from the introduction stays open until the final whistle: whether this is the first step of a genuine resurrection, or a fine, one-off round of applause for a glory that is past. The answer begins on opening day, with the anthem, the green shirt, and a history that weighs heavier than any ranking.

Official sources

• FIH (International Hockey Federation)
• Pakistan Hockey Federation
• Asian Hockey Federation
• Olympics.com
• Wikipedia

Pakistani media

• Dawn
• The News International
• The Express Tribune
• Geo Super
• Business Recorder
• ProPakistani
• The Nation