Men's and Women's Hockey World Cups

[srini]

He just got axed

[jaydeep]

Yes, another stupid decision by Hockey India ... They removed Harendra Singh stating a disappointing 2018 and has been again offered a charge of coaching the junior squad.


Harendra Singh removed as India hockey coach; offered charge of junior squad

[jayakris]

Now what? Charlesworth?

[sameerph]

Expected knee jerk reaction by Hockey India to sack a coach which is the easiest thing to do. Now spend some more time to find another one and then spend few more months for that coach to settle with the team. Time running out for Tokyo 2020.

[ssp]

Tokyo 2020 is a write off (if we even qualify!)

Expected stupidity from Batra and his cronies. We have wasted decades because of utterly useless idiots who have no interest in getting results. Who needs enemies when we have scum like this.

How many coaches have we tried? No real improvement (apart from Walsh and maybe Oltmans)? Any sensible person can work out that our players are not good enough and the best way to get medals at world level is raise the standard of domestic hockey. Have some kind of structured league system, if not nationally, at least in each state and then quality and quantity will improve. However, HI will not do this, but sack a coach who is saddled with at least 4-5 substandard players in every squad. The players remain but the coach is always sacked. Laughable nonsense.

[ssp]

We have been awarded the next men's world cup (Jan 2023) and the women's edition (July 2022) will be held in Spain & Netherlands.

Money talks as our bid could not be matched! So we are the main country (financially, if not on the pitch!) in world hockey. How about manipulating some of the rules to favour Asian hockey? For so many decades we have been poor on this aspect. If the reliance on physique and power can be reduced, we will see our teams becoming more competitive. I think enlarging the circle by 5m could be really useful in negating the dominance of PCs and encourage field goals.

The other thing I'd like is to amend the umpiring set up. Can't have 2 European/white umpires if an Asian/African team is playing. Secondly, I'd like a better video referral system- maybe for contentious yellow cards or have 2 reviews. We often get screwed on this front.

[sameerph]

Not such a good thing for Hockey as a whole though that consecutive world cups are held in same country. Now, let us hope at least it is moved to some other city other than Bhubaneshwar which has been hosting all the big events in last few years. Or have it in 3-4 cities.

[ssp]

Women's WC pools were announced a few days ago. Looks tough for us to get into the QFs.

http://www.fih.ch/events/world-cup/wome ... -laid-out/

[prasen9]

Can some mod please drop the 2018 then from this thread?

[Done! Mod, Jay]

[sameerph]

Womens hockey world started couple of days back in Spain and Netherlands. We are in a tough group with 4th ranked England, 9th ranked New Zealand and 13th ranked China.

We play England today in our first match. NZ and China drew 2-2 yesterday.

[sameerph]

1-1 draw against England today. Good results considering that we lost to them twice at Tokyo olympics including in bronze medal match.

So, all 4 teams in our teams tied at 1 point each after first round of matches. We play China on 5th July in an important match.

[ssp]

Close game v England. A draw is better than the usual outcome against this opposition. We had 7 PCs and Sharmila Devi did a 'Mandeep' in front of an open goal (mis trapped!!), but England had 2 or 3 great chances too. Now we have to beat China who have improved a lot under their new coach, Alyson Annan.

[Saffron Lenin]

Pathetic game against China!!!!Very disappointing to see china dominating the whole game..We were just defending..... Luckily we don't lose the game

[arjun2761]

NZ beat England 3-1, so a tie or win in our final match should get us through to the next stage. A loss could be problematic however unless China also beats England.

[ssp]

We need to finish 3rd to progress into a play off with 2nd placed team from Pool C.

Normally, we get overrun by the speed, high press and physicality of NZ, so our record against them is poor. Our best hope is for China to beat England This looks a long shot as the latter usually pull out a big performance when required (and will have the umpires on their side )

Our only advantage is that we'll know what is required because our game is after the China v England one. Knowing our luck and likely displays in tough situations, we will be knocked out.