By Admin 
Dutch coach Siegfried Aikman always almost chooses teams that are either struggling or sides that are eager to excel, and delivers on the promise.
An FIH senior coach, the 66-year-old has coached the senior teams of Japan (to its maiden Asian Games gold in 2018), Pakistan (to its maiden medal (a bronze) in 11 years in the 2022 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup) and Oman (to its first-ever bronze in the 2024 World Cup 5×5).
Now with the Bangladesh junior men’s hockey team for the FIH World Cup here beginning November 28, Aikman wants his boys, who are making their debut, to give a tough fight to the teams in Pool-F that has heavyweights Australia, South Korea and France.
“I like the challenge, so I deliberately choose developing teams, because I think that’s where I can make a difference,” said Aikman after the training session at the SDAT-Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium here on Wednesday. The veteran coach knows it will be nigh impossible to progress to the knockouts. “The domestic standard in hockey in Bangladesh is low, that means the pace of the game is slow, so our players are used to play a slow game, and when you play against players from the best of the world who play high pace they put high pressure, every mistake they punish. So, we need to adapt, grow, and that is the progress we want to make,” he said.
Aikman’s spoke about his legacy he wants to leave. “I help my assistant coaches to grow, I don’t just coach the team, I also coach the coaches, I want my legacy to be that if I leave, my assistants have to take over the team, because I think the team should be coached by their own countrymen,” he said.