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

In the final minute of the semi-final in Ismailia, Egypt, everything was on the line. Pakistan led 4-3 against Japan, and a draw would force a shoot-out to decide who went to the World Cup and who stayed in the wilderness for another eight years. Then Japan got a penalty stroke. 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 onto 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 symbolic applause, or will August instead expose the gulf between a golden past and an impoverished present?

World ranking and qualification

Pakistan arrives at the World Cup as the outsider within its own continental elite. Among the Asian teams only India ranks higher, and on the global list the Green Shirts have slipped far beyond the upper tier they occupied for decades. Their ranking shows just how wide the gap has become with the countries that dominate the tournament.

The qualification itself was an ordeal. Because of the regional tensions with India, Pakistan missed the 2025 Asia Cup in Rajgir, where the continental title carried a direct World Cup ticket. The federation therefore had to take the long way round: first a play-off against Bangladesh in Dhaka (8-2 and 8-0), then the FIH qualifying tournament 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 stands from the European elite. For a country that missed the World Cup entirely in 2014 and 2023, the return was in itself already the victory.

All of Pakistan's World Cup appearances

Pakistan is the only nation to become world champion four times, and at the same time a team that has slid 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 itself had helped conceive through federation president Air Marshal Nur Khan. In 1978 came the title in Buenos Aires, in 1982 the third in Bombay with a 3-1 win over West Germany, and in 1994 the fourth in Sydney on penalty strokes against the Netherlands. Between those highs there was also bitter loss: the 1990 World Cup final was lost on home soil in Lahore, in front of a sold-out home crowd. Alongside the World Cup titles, the honours list 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 left off the entry list for the second time. The turning point dates roughly from the introduction of artificial turf from the 1970s onwards, which put speed and physicality above Asian stick skills and short combination play. Pakistan could not lay the expensive synthetic pitches on a large scale, and the foundation beneath its 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 man tasked with steering Pakistan to the World Cup only got the job in April 2026, after a coaching carousel that captures the administrative chaos around the team. Manzoor ul-Hassan, a defensive former international from the bronze-medal Olympic team of 1976, replaced Australian Colin Batch within a few weeks, to the visible dismay of a squad that praised Batch for his modern know-how. Manzoor is 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." He is just as candid about the priorities: for him the World Cup is not the main goal but a school on the way to the final of the Asian Games later in 2026, the real route to Olympic qualification for Los Angeles 2028.

Ismailia 2026: the road back to the World Cup

The qualifying tournament 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 1-3 down to 4-3, with goals from Abu Mahmood and Sufyan Khan among others and the decisive penalty-stroke save by 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 detract from the main fact: after eight years, Pakistan was back.

Asian Champions Trophy 2024 and Nations Cup 2025

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

FIH Pro League 2025-26

When New Zealand withdrew, Pakistan, as Nations Cup runner-up, got to take part in the Pro League for the first time, the weekly test of strength among the world's elite. It became a harsh school. Pakistan lost all of its matches and was relegated straight away. Still, there was growth: it went down 3-4 against India after a late offensive, and against England the team led 1-0 for a long time and conceded only one of seventeen penalty corners from the English. The final standings mainly show the gap.

As of 24 June 2026 (FIH); the season closes on 28 June. The top five are verified; the figures for positions 6 through 8 become final after the closing match day (see to-be-verified list). Pakistan is winless and relegated.

The staff under Manzoor

Alongside national coach Manzoor ul-Hassan, former international and Olympic champion Tahir Zaman serves as Director High Performance & Development. The selection committee is led by hockey legend Samiullah Khan, the "Flying Horse", two-time world champion, who laid the foundation for the World Cup group after open trials in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Over the team hangs the interim governance structure of the Pakistan Hockey Federation, since early 2026 under ad-hoc chairman Mohyuddin Wani, appointed by the government after months of administrative turmoil.

Training group spring 2026

The group below is based on the official FIH selection for the qualifier in Ismailia and the subsequent Pro League. The final World Cup selection of eighteen players will only become official around July.

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 to win 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.

Ammad Butt is the captain and the tactical anchor, the most experienced player with nearly two hundred internationals. He guards the balance in midfield when the young forwards storm forward, although his participation in the European Pro League trip was uncertain because of a visa issue.

Hannan Shahid is the entertainer. The forward comes from a renowned hockey family, debuted with the seniors 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 Nations Cup 2025 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 in the Pro League parried several penalty corners from the Indian specialists. In a team with a vulnerable defence, he is often the last resort.

Competition analysis per line

The Manzoor system

Under Manzoor ul-Hassan, 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 world's top level. The coach even calls the restoration of confidence within the group more important than tactics, and links that to his own diagnosis that the side gives away too much at the back. The core of the recovery plan is therefore 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 is enough after a two-month training camp against the world's best is the open question.

The attack: fast transition and individual class

Pakistan's danger lies in the transition. The moment the ball is won, the side almost always opts for the direct ball in behind rather than controlled build-up, and forwards like Hannan Shahid and Afraz immediately look for the one-on-one, no matter how many defenders surround them. It is spectacular and creates chances, but it exacts a heavy defensive toll: exactly the pattern Manzoor describes when he says 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 forcing a foul inside the circle, and the execution revolves around Sufyan Khan, the Bannu-born drag flick specialist who operates the team's most dangerous weapon. Alongside him, Abu Bakar Mahmood serves as a second threat who draws the first runner towards himself and so 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 game at times in the closing European weeks, and lacks the physical condition to sustain its intensive playing style for sixty minutes. Against England, waiting 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 razor-thin.

India: the match that brings a continent to a standstill

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 more than 180 times since 1956, with Pakistan historically slightly ahead. But the present belongs to India: 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 plays out without the bitter edges of cricket: in London both hockey teams shook hands politely.

Yet this clash is more charged than ever. In 2025 Pakistan withdrew, because of regional tensions, from the Asia Cup in India, precisely the tournament that handed out a direct World Cup ticket, and as a result had to take the hard detour via Bangladesh and Egypt to still qualify. 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 an open account statistically. For Pakistan it is the chance to break a run of almost ten years without a win in one go, on the biggest stage there is.

England: the pool favourite that has already struck

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

Wales: the realistic chance of points

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

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 per 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 mindset 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, while at the same time playing 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 mindset that becomes 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 side that refused to collapse even when the run of play had long justified it.

At the same time, that resilience is born of hardship. The players saw their allowances plummet and went on tour with borrowed money and in poor accommodation, and still the team fought its way back to the World Cup. That says something about the culture: restoring self-confidence is, in Manzoor's words, more important than tactics. Only once a player believes in himself again does his class rise to the surface of its own accord.

Hockey is officially still the national sport of Pakistan, but in practice it has been pushed out of the spotlight, the sponsorship money and the attention by cricket. What remains runs largely on the department system: teams from banks, WAPDA, the army and the navy give players work and a stage, and in the absence of central contracts the daily tour allowance is often the most important source of income. That system is crumbling now that departments are pulling out, while the shortage of artificial turf pitches has been eroding the foundation of talent development for decades.

Yet the sport lives on, especially regionally. In Bannu, a hockey stronghold since British times that once produced Olympic champion Hameedi, roughly half the city watched the livestream of a local club final, according to Dawn. 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 experienced at home: pay channel Tapmad acquired the exclusive broadcasting rights, so that fans can see the Green Shirts live on the biggest stage again for the first time in eight years.

The flip side is the governance crisis that is never far away. The Pakistan Hockey Federation split in 2024 into rival branches, an investigative report documented mismanagement around visas, hotels and subsidies, and only an intervention by the prime minister brought a temporary interim structure. The finances remain contradictory. During the qualification campaign the players received a daily allowance of around forty dollars, a sharp drop compared with the one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars of earlier tours. For the Pro League and the World Cup the interim federation actually raised the travel allowance sharply again, while the training-camp money at home was lowered to an amount of which players remarked that not even day labourers would work for it. The same investigative report described how players on an earlier tour 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 a pool that is among the toughest of the tournament. The World Cup features sixteen nations, divided over four pools of four; the best two per pool advance to the second round. The widget below shows the make-up of pool D, the opponents and the schedule.

Scenario analysis: the path through the pool

The most likely scenario is elimination in the group stage. With England and India as the predicted numbers one and two, and with Pakistan's own recent form (last and relegated in the Pro League, no win against India for years), third or fourth place in pool D is the realistic expectation. The second scenario hinges on Wales: if Pakistan wins that match, the side is 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 side that plays with its head held high, forces a draw or a win against a top nation, and thereby gives weight to the recovery story heading towards the Asian Games and Los Angeles 2028.

1. The penalty corners of Sufyan Khan. Pakistan's most dangerous weapon stands or falls with his drag flick. At every penalty corner, watch his position to the left of the stopper and the footwork with which he puts rotation on the ball. He scored key goals in qualification and is not FIH Rising Star of the Year for nothing.

2. The comeback DNA. Pakistan came back this season from 1-3 against Japan and from 0-2 against France. It is precisely when the side 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 side 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 makes it worth watching.

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

6. The solo runs of Hannan Shahid and Afraz. Both forwards prefer to look for the individual dribble, with quick turns along the backline to force a penalty corner. Afraz did not win the prize for the best skill of the tournament in Egypt for nothing.

7. Rana Waheed Ashraf as playmaker. The creative engine who scored against Belgium and England in the Pro League and was named Player of the Match in 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 side must show that it can not only compete with the big teams, but also deliver the expected results.

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

10. The context off the pitch. The coaching changes and the payment problems weigh on morale. A team that plays with abandon despite all of it tells a story that reaches beyond the result. That is, for this Pakistan, perhaps the real stake of the tournament.

Three closing scenarios take shape. In the most likely one, Pakistan goes out in the group stage, behind England and India, with the honour of the return as the biggest reward. In the second, the side beats Wales and, with an upset against a top nation, forces its way into the second round, the kind of result that makes a whole country look at hockey again. In the third, which cannot be read off the final standings, this young generation plays in a way that makes the recovery credible, whatever the score, and keeps building 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 there. But for a country that invented the World Cup and won it four times, that then missed out twice and has 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 real resurgence, or a fine, one-off round of applause for a glory that is gone. 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