Hockey Junior World Cup - 2016

A forum to discuss Indian hockey and the disarray it is in despite the promising new professional PHL series.

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arjun2761
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by arjun2761 »

Not too dissapointed by these results. Looks like we simply got outcoached or were not prepared to play properly which are well known defects of our coaching and preparation system.

In junior events like this one, I think the talent level and future potential is more important to me than the actual placing. For example (as an analogy), I would much rather have Yuki be a top 30 singles players in the mens ranking with no junior GS titles than have him win 2 junior GS titles but then have him fizzle out and not make the top 100 in the mens game.

Talent wise this team is probably one of the top 4 in the tournament. In the second stage for top 1-8 places, Netherlands is looking like top team while NZ is looking like one of the top 5 teams. India appears to be better than NZ and pretty close to the Dutch.

BTW, in the 2 groups for 1-8 ranking, Netherlands is leading one group while NZ is second in the other group. In the 2 groups for the 9-16 positions, India is leading one group and Poland is leading the other. In the 9-16 games, we just beat Belgium 4-0 while Belgium had tied Pakistan and Spain in the first phase with 9 pts and barely got edged out. So, we were victims of both being in the strongest group and also having NZ play the Dutch after we did (and hence they could play a convenient draw). Of course, we still should have beaten NZ and tied the Dutch but that's where our poor coaching and preparation did us in.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by PKBasu »

I think this is particularly disappointing because, until this time, we had always done much better in the Junior World Cups than in the full world cups/Olympics. At the junior level, at least, we had been a truly world-class side in hockey. I hope we don't accept this year's outcome as the new normal in junior hockey -- the way our administrators have come to accept our reduced status in world (pro) hockey.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by Ankit Desai »

PKBasu wrote:I think this is particularly disappointing because, until this time, we had always done much better in the Junior World Cups than in the full world cups/Olympics. At the junior level, at least, we had been a truly world-class side in hockey. I hope we don't accept this year's outcome as the new normal in junior hockey -- the way our administrators have come to accept our reduced status in world (pro) hockey.
Basu sir, it was never world class, but matter of fact was that others never had matured players at their rank or players with little or less experience at Senior international level. If you check current Ausi, Ned, Spain teams than they have players with more than little senior international experience. India always had 2-3 players who played with seniors at international level.

This time we failed very bad. We had never any system in place but had typical forward play style run like crazy and in camps work like donkey.

To tell you truth sport is NOT a cup of tea to India.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by arjun2761 »

Just to confirm my hunch that India was one of the 4 top teams in the WC talent wise, both the Netherlands and NZ have made the semifinals. As NZ was clearly dominated by India, only the Dutch, Germany, and Australia seem to be the equal or better than India (and India should have been in the semifinals but for the convenient draw between NZ and the Dutch).

BTW, India topped their second stage pool by beating England 9-0 and will now play Poland for the 9th place (with Poland topping the other pool in the 9-16th classification stage). Of course, the "maturity" of the junior players is another issue altogether.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by ssp »

Arjun: I am terribly disappointed with the results. These results do matter. I'd love to see us winning a World Cup at this level again. At U21 level we have some hope of winning. At senior level, each passing year sees us deteriorating ever further away from the top.

In the mid 70s not making the semis in the Olympics or WC was considered a disaster ( there debates in Parliament after the Montreal disaster). In the 80s we were in the Champions trophy more often than not. In the 94 WC, I remember 5th place being 'celebrated' as a new dawn. Nowadays we don't even get into the semis of the Asia Cup or Commonwealth or Asian games. Shocking decline and with it a gradual lowering of targets.

I had high hopes that this team could get to the semis at the least.

We may be one of the top four teams here, but who will remember that in the future. The stats will show us playing 9-10th place match. The 9-0 win against England is great, but when it mattered (against NZ & Netherlands) we messed up. If our PCs were even 30% as good as the Dutch we would WON both matches. This is where our totally SHIT coaches and preparation methods let us down time and again. We play 1960s hockey even after decades of rubbish results. WHY? Isn't there one intelligent coach who has Plan B or C when things are not going well? I've posted a link on another thread about Brasa's thoughts on our play/ preparation. I have been moaning about our stupid camps for ages.

I think our policy of not playing any U21s in the senior team for the past year was pathetic. Both teams could have benefitted from this. The experience gained by the U21s would certainly have helped them here.

I fully expected a draw between NZ & Holland. The way it panned out was horrible.

Australia seem far and away the strongest team and I hope they beat the Dutch. If NZ get through they will need a lot of luck to win. They were outplayed by Oz today.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by arjun2761 »

When it counted, the Netherlands easily beat NZ 4-1 :roll:

Some disingeneous comments from the Dutch coach since their shenanigans largely prevented India from making the semifinal stage.
http://www.fieldhockey.com/index.php?op ... tid=1:news
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by Atithee »

Have we traditionally done well at U-21 sports or is it U-14, U-18, ..... ? If it is the latter, I am less surprised because the age verification at higher ages is harder to disguise (usually the bane of Asian teams) plus there are only the serious folks left at U-21 stage. To contrast, at lower age levels, there are many budding players who are just doing it for a hobby and slowly find their true calling in life which may not be the sport.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by arjun2761 »

India beats Poland 4-0 to finish 9th. Our failure to beat NZ in pool play (in a match that we dominated) was perhaps the main reason we did not make the semis. Netherlands and Germany are playing for the title while Australia play NZ for 3rd. Among Asian teams, Pakistan finish 5th and Korea 7th.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by ssp »

Agree with Arjun- that draw against NZ ruined it for us. On a luckier day we could have won that game by 3-4 goals.
However, we still had plenty of chances against the Dutch to rescue the situation, but our PCs were crap. In modern hockey PCs decide the result of a tight game. We give away far too many PCs and convert far too few at this level. At the senior level the ratio of PCs conceded & gained is appalling.
Out of this squad of U21s we will squander at least 80%. One or two will find favour with the selectors and the rest will be forgotten for ever.
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Re: 2009 U21 World Cup

Post by david »

Germany completely outplayed the Dutch winning the final 3-1
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Re: Junior Indian Hockey - men and women

Post by sameerph »

Article on Indian junior team with interesting comments from Oltmans -

Juniors prepare to stand up and be counted
We generally begin a cycle with 33 players, so even with the entire 26 from the present lot intact there are seven vacancies for juniors. But quality matters to me more than numbers and there may be fewer seniors and more juniors. Let us see after the World Cup,” Oltmans told The Hindu .
With Oltmans appearing firmly in charge for some more time, we may see many from this junior team join the senior team after the junior world cup.
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Re: Junior Indian Hockey - men and women

Post by ssp »

Watching us making hard work of seeing of a very poor Canadian team in our 1st match at the JWC. Missing lots of chances, but I have horrible memories of our 2009 and 2013 JWCs. Si many good results before the WC and when it mattered we were abysmal. We need to be 5 up by now. Mandeep has scored one but has been his usual wasteful self.
Varun makes it 3-0. Can we get another couple?
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Re: Junior Indian Hockey - men and women

Post by sameerph »

We ended up winning 4- 0. Not bad in the end but scoreline should have been better considering the way this junior team has played against much better teams in the recent past.

Should we have a thread to discuss this ?
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Re: Hockey Junior World Cup - 2016

Post by jaydeep »

Moved posts into the old thread about 2009 junior world cup.

Too many missed chances against Canada, only scored 1 goal from 7 penalty corners.
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Re: Hockey Junior World Cup - 2016

Post by ssp »

Watching our game v England and as expected we are struggling. 1-0 down and out attack always seems to break down with some slack play from Parvinder, Gurjant Simranjeet and mostly from Mandeep. I just don't get what qualities Mandeep brings to any team.
Got it back to 1-1. Umpiring is cr*p. Everything is going against us.
We've turned it around to lead 2-1 at half time. We need a 2 or 3 goal cushion to guard against the umpiring and our customary stupidity at the back.
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