Years of hardwork lost in two minutes — Tirkey

reaction to India’s seventh-place finish at the Olympic Games. “I’ve never had worse moments in my life. Why me, the whole team is yet to recover. Even many of the Indian contingent skipped dinner that night,” he reveals alluding to the draw in a crucial league match between India and Poland which ended India’s medal hopes.

With the voice choked in emotion, he recalls those terrible moments. “The Polish striker was unmarked. One of our players failed to intercept a pass to him in the right. Before we could charge to him the damage was over. We had only two minutes to defend the one goal advantage. But somehow we could not.”

The mood in the village was predictably gloomy. “Yes. it was the worst experience. We knew we missed a golden chance to win an Olympic medal. After the Poland match we’re not speaking to one another. Many senior players including Mukesh Kumar, Dhanraj Pillay, were in tears. Our coach Baskaran too was silent. Many of Indian supporters, officials and athletes came to console us. Even the German and Dutch teams could not believe the result. After 20 years, they said, they are seeing a strong Indian team.”

Tirkey feels it was a combination of many factors that led to India’s exit from the medal round. “First, of course, I’ve to admit, it was a defensive lapse. Being a defender I feel ashamed. But that is not the only reason. Without trying to give excuses, I must say, the unexpected rain made things worse for us than for our opponents. We lost our rhythm. The sticks were slipping out of our hands. Then, Mukesh Kumar was out of the ground for an yellow card during those crucial minutes.

“Besides, We also missed many chances. Even after Poland equalised we had a few chances to score. Nothing went our way that night.”

Tirkey feels pressure factor also was there. “The Polish had nothing to lose. They played one of their best games in the Olympics. On the other hand we were under tremendous pressure.”

The strategy, says the Indian Airlines employee, for the match was to play a free game. “Our coach had told us to play a free game. We went into the match with a lot of confidence. If we had won, we would have perhaps won at least a silver. Because the Pakistan team was not doing very well. We could have beaten them in the semi-finals. But we failed in the first half against Poland. We should have scored in the first 10 minutes. But it did not happen.”

Tirkey says India’s best match was with Australia against whom they were leading twice. “We played the very well in that match. But by our next match against South Korea we were exhausted. We had very little time to recover. In the Korea match too we had missed chances. If we had scored one goal against them perhaps things would have been different.”

About his individual performance Tirkey was not keen to discuss. “It doesn’t matter how well you play as long as the team is not winning.”