The last time the Indian men’s hockey team walked out on the field under a full-time Indian head coach, they failed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the powers that be never again showed faith in Joaquim Carvalho’s compatriots for over 10 years.
Hockey India even preferred the relatively inexperienced Sjoerd Marijne when every expert in the country wanted the reign to be handed to Harendra Singh after the sacking of Dutchman Roelant Oltmans last year.
The 52-year-old was ultimately named the Indian team coach after India failed to win a medal in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in April. The Champions Trophy starting Saturday in the Netherlands will be his first real test before the Asian Games in Jakarta and the World Championship at home.
Though Harendra has clearly stated that winning a medal in the two world events and the gold in the Asian Games are his primary objectives, the only Indian coach with an FIH certification would be more keen to find a solution to the problems that have dogged Indian hockey for long, rather than just target a podium finish.
The dal chawal way
It is not to say that the foreign coaches starting from Jose Brasa to Marijne haven’t had the understanding of these problems and tried to solve them in their own ways. But when India skipper PR Sreejesh was asked what was the difference between Harendra and his predecessor, the goalkeeper replied, “[Harendra] Sir eats dal chawal and [Marijne] eats a lot of cheese.”
It is true that Harendra, who has worked with most players of this squad during their junior days, can understand the cultural and emotional issues of these players a lot better than his foreign counterparts. But that hardly makes his job easy.
In a recent interview to The Hindu, Harendra spoke about the areas of concern, including the penalty-corner conversion, attacking patterns and off-the-ball work, that he has been working on for the past few months in the preparatory camps.
But more than the on-field work, it is the off-field work that the 2016 Junior World Cup-winning coach is putting in that could be the determining factor if he wants to fulfil the dream of bringing Indian hockey’s past glory into reality.
“The first thing I did was send out a small questionnaire to every player,” Harendra was quoted as saying. “I told them what I was thinking and how I planned to help them chart a path to success, but I needed to know their minds first. There were a few questions I asked – their vision for 2018 as an individual, as a team and what they saw as demands of the country. I asked them what they expected from themselves and the coaching staff, and what areas they thought they could contribute to.
“I want to see how many are on the same wavelength. I frankly don’t rate too highly any player who only wants to play for the country, howsoever prestigious that may sound. I believe you must always want to be able to win a medal for the country because only that counts, only then can we think of actually growing and winning.”
To achieve that goal, Harendra has brought back experienced campaigners like Sardar Singh and Ramandeep Singh to add some cool-headed intelligence to a young and energetic squad while giving back the reigns of the team to Sreejesh from Manpreet Singh.
India go into the tournament as losing finalists in the last edition two years ago. And on the eve of the Champions Trophy opener against Pakistan, Harendra preferred to dwell on the importance of winning three points instead of talking about the overall process.
He would probably be happy that his stint begins with a match against the arch-rivals. Though Pakistan is a pale shadow of a team that once was a thorn in Indian teams’ campaigns in many major tournaments, there is little need to motivate the players for the high-intensity fixture. And that means the team can get their campaign off on the right foot without the coach needing to do anything out of the ordinary.
Playing as a unit
But more than the result against Pakistan or rather any other teams in Breda, the interesting thing to observe will be the philosophy Harendra’s teams would adopt against the top hockey nations including Olympic Champions Argentina and whether they can execute the tactics as a cohesive unit.
If the Commonwealth Games was to be taken as the point of reference, the Indian team probably had the highest number of circle penetrations in the tournament but it was the lack of understanding between players and position play that cost them in the ultimate analysis.
There is no doubt that the Indians are one of the most talented lot in world hockey and on their day have the potential to decimate any opponent. But that has not happened that frequently in the recent past since they have mostly failed to convert that individual brilliance into a collective performance that can earn them the desired results.
They have either failed to complement each other or have been guilty of too much selfish play and have been found bereft of ideas when under pressure.
Harendra had successfully tackled these issues with the junior team, with whom he had a far longer period to work with before the junior World Cup. With quite a few members of that squad making it to the senior team, the real challenge for the coach would be to make the individuals raise the bar and play as a unit.
If he succeeds in that process, the position the team finishes in the competition would just be a footnote in a long success story he can script with this squad. And if he fails to kick off that process in Breda, then the pressure on him would suddenly hit the roof.