Don’t blame it on the boys

Going to the Olympics is the ultimate dream of any Indian player, and they would be hurting real bad. Only Dilip Tirkey, Ignace Tirkey and William Xalco have been there, and I am sure the whole bunch is distraught. It is an occasion they have missed — and who knows who will get to play after four years, or again, if we will indeed qualify.

It is just very, very sad. But I would not like to blame any individual player, because the problems are too deep- rooted. True, on Sunday, we did not play even 50 per cent to our potential. We were pathetic, and we were lucky to not concede about six goals. It was a complete lack of composure and discipline and a failure of strategy. The two needless yellows exposed us — we were playing with 10 men for over 15 minutes.

But the failure goes deeper down, and trouble has been brewing for over 20 years now.

We need to start right at the bottom where we have only a handful of good coaches. Children are not learning the right things and they pick up bad habits in technique — our man-marking skills, over-dribbling, et cetera. These are mistakes that go unnoticed and ignored at the domestic level, but they will be badly punished at the international level, more so in the crunch matches.

On the immediate problem, I think our preparation was terrible. We needed to play many more competitive matches before going into this tournament. Britain prepared by playing the Champions Challenge; the only serious team we played in the lead-up was Belgium. In the last one year, we have played Australia only once, and not played Germany, Holland and Spain. We had three medals in the last year to show, and no doubt we played well at the Asia Cup, but Korea was the only real team we beat. Our string of big-margin wins also gave us a false sense of hope. That was six months ago, and we had been resting easy on that.

Right now, let us be honest, no international team is scared of us. Let us put our eight gold medals in perspective — it was different hockey altogether. It was on grass, for God’s sake. We have not had a single semi-final appearance in a major tournament on turf. We have barely 15-20 playable astroturfs all over India. I have played some club hockey in Germany. In Stuttgart alone, which is a small city, there were 15-20, on which boys in the age group 6-16 hone their basics. Where are our boys to hone their basics?

Somebody like Ric Charlesworth is hired, but have we made full use of him? I have travelled all over the country and watched hockey all over the world, and I can safely say that Indian U-10s are more talented than anywhere else; and everywhere I go, they talk about Indian skills. But they need to be groomed. Dribbling is the toughest of skills, and it comes easiest to us. But because of the lack of grooming, we make it the toughest. Dribbling is not the only skill though. Where we lose out to the Europeans are the other skills — passing the ball on time, not holding on to it, off-the-ball running. They have intelligence and are good at reading the game — where we lose out. Someone like Charlesworth needs to be involved in coaching the coaches.

There is never a right time for disaster. Any time would have been bad. We can always bounce back, and public memory is short. But what I really want to know is this. All the news channels are screaming about our failure to qualify for the Beijing Olympics now. But where were they earlier? It has been a gradual decline — and how could we fail to notice the writing on the wall?

Finally, the leadership at the top has been totally poor. They have allowed things to drift, so have the local and state associations. We also need younger selectors to understand the game on the turf, and modern hockey. No self-respecting coach will take up the job without a long-term contract — at least two-three years. It is devastating today, but further ahead lies a long, hard road to success.

The writer, who was captain of India’s national hockey team, retired from the sport in January 2008

express@expressindia.com