India's Europe Tour

[ssp]

Lost 1-0 to Spain.
That's a massive improvement on the 1st Test!!
Spain were resting their best players and we actually had a keeper!!Still it's a loss.

[Ankit Desai]

Google Translator said Spain lost to India 0-1 !!

spanish text is from Here.

Ankit

[arjun2761]

MS translator also states that India won 1-0 on a PC goal in a match reduced to two 20 minute halves. If so, this would be a very good result on many dimensions (beating Spain, scoring from a PC, not conceding any goal etc.).

[ssp]

My translation said Spain 'conquered' India 1-0. The Spanish hockey website had the score the other way round initially with no other report. They have obviously updated the website.

That's an encouraging sign although it was not an official Test.

[Ankit Desai]

Spain Defeated India 5-4.


Text from Here.

Ankit

[Ankit Desai]

At Half time score were 4-1 in favor of Spain.

Ankit

[ssp]

Last Test seems to be a 5-4 defeat for us. I may have got the translation wrong, but somehow I know we have lost. That's the usual thing for us!!
http://www.rfeh.com/web/main.jsp

Still massive improvement from the 1st match. We always seem to play stupidly in the 1st match of each series.

[ssp]

Looks like a last minute goal conceded yet again. Still a good fight back from yet another shocking start. 4-0 down at one time.

2 Tests against Holland remain. Hope we make a better start to that Test series.

[ssp]

Looks like another defeat. 5-3 to Holland.

Translation is a little confusing:

Netherlands polished confidence against India
The way the Orange Men of coach Michel of the Hill India on Friday presented the knee - especially in the first half - if there are 5-3.

Still have to be grateful it wasn't a thrashing like the 1st Test against Spain.

[Ankit Desai]

Friday 14 and Sunday, August 16 Dutch men team plays an international match against India. The last matches for the European Championships! The games will be played in the Wagener Stadium. Admission is free.

14-Aug 19.30 Netherlands-India 5-3 (5-0).
1-0 Timm Hoyng
Teun de Nooijer 2-0 *
3-0 Taeke Taekema (sc)
4-0 Taeke Taekema (sc)
5-0 Rogier Hofman
5-1 Sardar Singh
5-2 Prabhjot Tirkey
5-3 Prabhjot Tirkey


Ankit

[PKBasu]

These are fearful thrashings anyway you look at them. We were down 0-5 before three token goals were put in. Brasa's experiments are not doing much good at this stage...

[jayakris]

Yeah, getting down 0-5 to NED, regardless of what we scored afterwards, is only showing that we were getting utterly dominated by them even in an exhibition match that doesn;t count for anything. "Fearful thrashing," indeed, as PKB said.

Fair to say that Brasa is not working any quick miracles so far ... I just hope that it is because he is taking a slower and longer-term view and is continuing to experiment, with an as-yet-unseen light at the end of the tunnel awaiting us! What else can we do but hope? .... There are a lot of things broken in the hockey that we have been playing which was always just looking OK enough to win but was never winning when it counted (a classic case of fundamental problems in the game style and the utter foolishness/cluelessness about winning hockey in modern times). That we are looking somewhat worse under Brasa is a good thing in my book so far! .. An indication, perhaps, that things hopefully are being changed.

I do/did expect that it would take time for anybody to fix it. The only problem is that we have no evidence that Brasa is capable of fixing anything; so we are once again doing the same old same old .. Hope, hope, hope and pray, without having taken any decisive actions with insighful analysis and a sufficient desire for turning the tide to make ourselves a smart team. Had we not been (apparently) bullied into picking Brasa and gone for somebody based on our own choice, perhaps we could take blame ourselves, but that is not the case either. Heck, may be, just may be, we would all get lucky just once with even a single decision Indian hockey has taken, even if under duress. Not a thing we have tried has worked for 35 years, which is a fact. Let us once again hope that Brasa is that rare stroke of luck. Again, what else can we do?

Jay

[ssp]

I'm afraid we are not going anywhere at the moment.

Brasa hasn't brought about any defensive improvements so far. Instead we are conceding even more goals than usual. Spain & Holland have toyed with us in the first halves of all the matches (apart from the unofficial 2nd Test against Spain). 5-0 , 4-1 & 5-0 were the half time scores in these 3 Tests. Pathetic.

I like the idea of players playing in all positions as this makes rolling substitutions work better, but we NEED a strong defensive structure to be successful. So, we picked Sandeep as our main defender/sweeper! Sardara & Vikram also played in defence and I feel that experiment has not worked. Sardara loses the ball too often and Pillay's passes lack speed. We are still giving away too many PCs.

However, Brasa has to be retained for next 2-3 years at least. We need to give him time. The selectors need to give him a balanced team with the best players available for starters. We have 11 forwards in this squad!! Why??

[prasen9]

Idiots. If we are losing to everybody, maybe the first step is to draw. Have more defenders in the team. Yes, swallow your ego. The day of five Indian forwards playing the entire half in the opponent's half and pounding the opponent have long been over.

[arjun2761]

I think we need to treat these matches as experimental games. india will never be a organized defensive powerhouse, so it does not behoove us to play that way even if we let in one or two fewer goals in these experimental matches.

India has to try to model its style on the football powerhouse Brazil where there is sufficient fitness in the players and coordination in the play that its superior one-on-one skills gives India the edge. In the football example, the Brazilians are only average in their defense but their superior ball skills really make them the best. As an analogy to the PCs in hocley, the Brazilians are also pretty good in set piece situations.