Sultan Azlan Shah tournament

[arjun2761]

India hold on to win 3-2!

[jayakris]

Phew, somehow managed to hold on for a 3-2 lead. The stupid foul that Sandeep committed at the 63rd minute mark when Malaysia was really under time pressure, to get a card and make us a man-down till the 68th min, was something to see. If Malaysia had any decent PC plans, they would have easily won today. Of course, we wasted PCs because Sandeep wasn't in when we got most of it. We even had one with none of the three PC guys in.

I only saw the second half. Why we take the ball to the flanks, especially the right flank, is something that I can never understand if my life depended on it. The hard hit into the circle has never worked but we keep on doing it. The 2 or 3 times we moved the ball up the middle, we were coming close to scoring every time, and the third goal was indeed scored on a move up the middle by Sardara.

The defense still look uncoached on pursit angles. One guy runs in up the middle with the ball, three guys get on him, one already beaten and running behind and two coming from both sides. Both our guys take the pursit angles to the same spot (miscalculating the runners' speed) and the forward beats both of them to go in. Happens every damn time. Elementary defensive ideas not coached, if you ask me. But what do I know. Of course, no amount of coaching works when guys are slow.

But there didn't seem to be too many stickwork and trapping mistakes by the defense in the second half. Or may be my expectations are too low on that count (seeing the team for the first time since the Olymp.Qualies).

Jay

[arjun2761]

Yes, the basic skills looked OK in the last 15 mins that I saw when India was 1 person down almost the entire time (and 2 down for some of it). More movement to the center on the offense would likely be effective and at least in this match, there seemed to be space in the middle which we were not using.

In the end, the defense did a decent job of holding on to the ball instead of aimless hits but one of the goals came from doing that. Noticed that off-the-ball running is still very poor so that often the ball carrier had no Indian player open in space when looking to outlet. Agree with SSP, that Sandeep and Raghunath are major liabilities on the field. I think they should be coached that if they are beaten, then they should just continue to run behind the opponent (or at an angle which bolsters the defense) and hopefully someone else will make the challenge and they will be back to even the numbers. Any time they tackled from behind something bad seemed to happen (Yellow card, PCs etc.). In fact, when we are 2 goals up, perhaps we are better off having them off the field.

[jayakris]

Noticed that off-the-ball running is still very poor so that often the ball carrier had no Indian player open in space when looking to outlet.

This was one of the primary litmus test items on coaching that I was looking for, as it seems like a coachable item. It is still a "fail" from Nobbs on this, as I hardly see much improvement on the crap we have seen for decades. At least in the one half I saw today, I rarely saw much proper off-the-ball positioning or running. Why are our players so stupid and why are they so uncoachable on this matter? This cannot be THAT hard to do, as one simply needs to move to some spot while not challenged by anybody. One needs to learn to move based on predicted passing lane possibilities based on the challenges one is seeing on the guy with the ball. If it is never worked on, one may never learn to predict it. Coaching.

Agree with SSP, that Sandeep and Raghunath are major liabilities on the field. I think they should be coached that if they are beaten, then they should just continue to run behind the opponent (or at an angle which bolsters the defense).

Not just these two. Pretty much everybody seems to do that when they are beaten. I would take the films and make anybody do 100 pushups or run 10 stadium laps for every time they stopped like that. Infuriating...

Jay

[Omkara]

India faced 6 penalty corners... conceded only 1 goal...worth mentioning

[jayakris]

It seemed like Malaysia was being stupid (at least that is what the commentators seemed to say) that they only went for one direct hit (scored on it) but kept trying the indirect stuff that was not working... May be we also got lucky. But then so did Malaysia, as they conceded most of our PCs when Sandeep wasn't around... Jay

[trojan]

got this from Indian hockey fb fan page.

so India has to win all its matches and GB has to lose 2 for India to make it to finals .

[sameerph]

so India has to win all its matches and GB has to lose 2 for India to make it to finals .

In fact if India wins both it's remaining matches against Argentina & Pakistan, we need Great Britan to only lose or draw 1 of it's 3 matches for us to get ahead of them to make the final. Important thing is for us to win both matches which is easier said than done.

[ssp]

Managed to watch some bits of the 2nd half, especially the last 7 mins or so.
Malaysia can consider themselves unlucky not to get a draw. Some laughably unintelligent play from Sandeep, Ragunath and Tushar. The first two are so slow and appallingly bad at tackling. Ragunath repeatedly gets so close to the attacker in the D that a PC is a formality. The attacker sometimes has to do NOTHING at all and this guy will charge in with a push or a stick tackle. Sandeep can't handle any bouncing ball and both are painfully slow.
Tushar makes my blood boil with his ability to get dispossessed EVERY single time. With 3 mins left on the clock, he had the ball in the left Malaysian corner on 2 occasions. All he had to do was keep the ball. Firstly, he whacked the ball into the D with NO other Indian forward in sight and then was easily tackled and on both occasions 2 passes had the Malaysians in our D. We had 9 on the pitch at the time because both of the sloths had been yellow carded. Don't know if that was a bad thing. Agree with Arjun that if we are 2-0 up, both of these guys should be substituted. In fact, I would only take Sandeep and Rupinder Pal to the Olympics. Only one of these two should be on the pitch at any one time.

Other depressing facts: 6 PCs conceded and 4 won. Idiotic crosses from the right wing continue. Lots of unforced errors. Apart 3-4 players, the rest are embarrassingly poor on the ball. Crass stupidity once we were in the D. 2-3 times we were through with only the GK to beat, but the shot was pathetic.
Good points: Gurbaj, Manpreet & Chettri put in good performances. Sardar was brilliant.

We will need a big improvement to win against Argentina. They have found some good form. Don't know about the Pakistan match. We could beat them easily (because our players will put in maximum effort) or we could play stupidly. The 'least stupid' team of the two will win.

[ssp]

Of all the top 12-15 international teams, India must have the most pathetic defence. There seems to be acres of space in our midfield. A simple slap hit of over 50m ALWAYS finds an attacker with space, sometimes right inside our D. Where are our players? 2-3 are lazily jogging back from our last attack (which has broken down due to awful choice of pass or dreadful stick skills), 2-3 are watching the ball and then we have Sandeep & Ragunath. We really have no business winning matches with such rubbish discipline. I shudder to think where we would be without Sardar. Our keepers often win MoM because they are sooo busy.

What's Nobbs doing to address this? So far, not much. What's Nobbs doing about our pattern of attacking? Not much. Same old wild crosses. Mind you, this is better than 'Indian' coached teams of 5-10 years back, when Dilip Tirkey and Kanwalpreet used to whack mindlessly from our own half. Neanderthal stuff. Now we are only a century behind

[Ankit Desai]

India look to beat Argentina to remain in contention for final

The tournament is wide open. Big victories in our two remaining games could even get us a place in the final,"

said Nobbs

Our focus has not shifted from preparing the squad for the Olympic Games, and we have improved with every outing here,"

he said.

-Ankit

[prasen9]

The tournament is wide open. Big victories in our two remaining games could even get us a place in the final,"

said Nobbs

I hate selective quotations. The article did not say what Nobbs continued to say. I copy it below.

Another victory can get us the trophy. Victories in six or seven games in the Olympics could even get us a gold medal. Victories in all the matches in the World Cup will even get us a World Cup.

[Ankit Desai]

....I hate selective quotations. The article did not say what Nobbs continued to say. I copy it below.

Another victory can get us the trophy. Victories in six or seven games in the Olympics could even get us a gold medal. Victories in all the matches in the World Cup will even get us a World Cup.

and Prasen from where did you get that quote ?

-Ankit

[jayakris]

Ankit, prasen is obviously being sarcastic. Had Nobbs shown the guts to say an original and funny line like prasen gave to poke fun at everybody's penchant to do calculations rather than focus on how (rather unsatisfactorily) we are playing, then I would become a big fan of his. But noooo... He said nothing of that sort. Jay

[prasen9]

and Prasen from where did you get that quote ?

-Ankit

Sorry, Ankit. Jay told me that I can't spell out where I pulled that quote out from on this forum. He is the boss.