Hockey at the London Olympics, 2012

[jaydeep]

Here r comments from our captain Bharat Chetri.

Need to go back to basics, says hockey captain Chetri

"We have major problems, we have to go back to India and learn more hockey skills that will improve our finishing."

"We need more mental conditioning, the players did not appear to be mentally strong and that was a major setback in such a big tournament."

"We are going down in every match, repeatedly missing chances and not able to defend well."

This was the first time Belgium had beaten India in the Olympic Games in four encounters. In 51 head-to-head internationals between these two teams, this is Belgium's sixth victory and the second in successive encounters.

[ssp]

All other teams in our pool had at least 4 points, we had none. Pakistan were in contention for SF from their pool almost until the end. We really have disgraced ourselves at these Olympics. Somehow London is where our hockey teams truly cover themselves in filth. I recall a World Cup there in which we finished 11th too.

It was 1986 WC, where we finished last, but we did win one match and drew with Germany as well. So this is officially our worst ever showing. There is not much hope against RSA as this team's mental issues can not be overcome.

[jaydeep]

Very nice article by K. Arumugam.

Where is the match temperament

Players go ordinary when they were expected to go extra-ordinary. Mukesh (Kumar) may be my pick here, and it applies to every Indian ‘great’.

The match temperament, which turns ordinary teams in to extraordinary, is what lacks India over time and space.

Every team that prepares for a target tournament, World Cup or Olympics, go there and give their best. Some may not have finished at top or in medal bracket, but never caved in, gave their best, even scaring the famed teams.

Teams prepare for years keeping a particular target tournament in mind. Once you are determined to be there, and spent lot of effort and money, you are expected to give your best, without bothering about results.

Where is that killer instinct, where is that extra every player is expected to give when needed most? Under-performing, lack of mental toughness, failing at the last hurdle, whatever you call, its all there in London.

There is no point in casticating one player or two. Indian teams as a whole has been flop for want of that extra bit. Is there problem in our system?

Balkrishnan (1992 coach) called it ‘treachery and indiscipline’.

Cedric D’Souza (1996 coach) called it ‘greedy’

Baskaran termed (2000 coach) termed it ‘lack of commitment’

Nobbs now let us all know its lack of’ mental toughness and contentment’.

Whatever the issue is, we as a team do not deliver irrespective of the fact that whether coached by an Indian or not, we had enough exposure or not, the federation is one or more etc. Unless we understand and iron out this, all other remedial measures will be knee jerk reactions.

The unanswered question is, why do we lack match temperament?

[hun]

An article written for Baseball but equally holds good for Hockey.

http://www.baseball-excellence.com/inde ... tail&id=47
When you look at many major league teams, the ones that have a reputation of doing well year in and year out, understand that this goes beyond mere talent. Throughout their organizations they settle of nothing less than the best possible attitudes. It starts at the top and filters down. They exude a quiet confidence from their instructional teams all the way up to the big club. If a player doesn’t fit the mold of their philosophy he is quietly traded. No fanfare, just gone. Thank you, see you later. Talent alone is never enough in a long season.

[arjun2761]

I also think that we need to get a younger, hungrier team to move up in the hockey world. Apparently, the team has a fair number of players that are pretty content with their level of play and are largely uncoachable.

Only Sardar and maybe 5-6 others from this team (who are head-and-shoulders better than the younger set) should be persisted with while the remainder of the team should be under-23 players from among those who show talent in the nationals and the domestic hockey tournament, etc. Of course, these younger players need to gain experience quickly, so we should schedule a fairly rigorous international playing schedule for the younger, more coachable talent to gain the requisite experience.

Ideally, this process should then continue to be repeated every 2-3 years. The top NFL teams in the US generally follow this approach -- only the key stalwarts are veterans while the remaining players are younger and hungrier. In a lackadaisical sport training culture like India's, this is even more important as our veterans (barring a few notable exceptions like Sardar) probably don't work very hard and are also uncoachable for team oriented play.

[jayakris]

All those things pre-suppose that the current team was coached properly, or that any new team we put together will be coached properly. Has not happened for a long time in Indian hockey. Not since 1976.

I am just sick of everybody jumping on the players. 18 Indians do not just all become losers. Collapses like this in sports do not happen because a whole team is made up of losers. Usually there are other reasons.

The poor fellows were set up to be totally confused in the end when what they were newly taught wasn't taught well enough for it to work, what they knew before was even worse, and they had no chance but to hang their heads and lose hope. It can happen to even the best sportsmen with the best mental strengths, if the coaching screws things up. Examples are plenty in world sports for that. I am not aware of anybody else who would cluelessly allow it to go on for nearly 40 years with no steps taken to improve coaching.

I am not saying that the team selection was right, or that all the players were talented/skilled enough. When you see even Saradara being ineffective, you have to think that something else was going on here. As usual, we will avoid acknowledging the 800 pound Gorilla in the room, and will look for little puppies to kick.

Jay

[hun]

http://www.nst.com.my/sports/other/hock ... n-1.122811
FORMER international Datuk Poon Fook Loke yesterday warned Asian teams to adopt modern methods of hockey or continue to be left behind in the sport.

"It is frightening as none of the Asian teams advanced to the semi-finals of the London Olympics. Pakistan needed to beat Australia (Monday) but they were instead hammered 7-0 while South Korea and India also failed to progress," said Fook Loke.
"The current standard of the game is very high. Hockey is not about positional play anymore, it is about speed and a player, most importantly, needs to be versatile.
"Asian teams will continue to lag behind if they do not adopt the modern game. It is also quite worrying that even the smaller European nations like Belgium are improving at a faster rate.

[jayakris]

Good that you gave an article that brought up Belgium.

You all know who coaches Belgium, right? Colin Batch, who was Auatralia's coach from 2001-2008. At the time when our Olympians were doing everything they could to get rid of Brasa and Charlesworth and bring in some idiot Indian, Belgium went and got this guy in 2010. 1 gold and 1 bronze in Olympics, 2 silvers in world cups, 2 golds and 2 silvers in champions as a coach. Way over the minimum qualification creterion I have always given (just one of those medals would do). Look where Belgium has got to. From wikipedia,

Batch guided the Red Lions to the 2012 London Olympics through qualification at the 2011 European Championships. In a tournament where the top 4 ranked teams qualified for London, Belgium defied their world ranking to finish 4th in the tournament. Belgium beat 5th world ranked nation Spain in their Pool A match 3-2 which was virtually the decider allowing them to finish second in their pool and set up a semi-final showdown against neighbors Holland. Belgium went down to Holland 4-2 before taking on England in the 3v4 playoff. Belgium lost the bronze medal match in Golden goal extra-time to England 2-1. Beating the 2008 Olympic Silver Medalists in Spain came as no surprise to the Belgian team who are fast improving as they push to become a top ranked nation

Look at the stuff that team did. And, oh, they had never qualified into champions trophy, and they did that earlier this year. Whom did they beat in the champions challenge final, by scoring 3 goals in the last 10 minutes? You can guess!

Get a guy like him. Pay him $150K salary if that is what it takes (India can afford it, to avoid the national humiliation we are seeing). Then see where the same Indian players will be after 2 years.

Jay

[prasen9]

Sometimes things need to hit rock bottom before they can be rebuilt. These vultures (Olympians) will fly away when there is no flesh left and nobody has to gain anything from it. I guess until that complete dismantling is done, these idiots will keep bumbling. Maybe we have reached that stage after this Olympics. Maybe nobody has anything to tear out from the body of Indian hockey. So, maybe they will leave it and go away. And, then maybe some capable coach will be brought in to develop the team. And, maybe nobody will try to obstruct that coach. Pay his fees on time. One can only hope.

[Kumar]

Sometimes things need to hit rock bottom before they can be rebuilt. These vultures (Olympians) will fly away when there is no flesh left and nobody has to gain anything from it. I guess until that complete dismantling is done, these idiots will keep bumbling. .

when we missed the olympics for first time in 2008, i thought that was rock bottom and took solace(hoping that india will coming roaring back)...now i am scared that we are hurling towards a bottomless pit !!!

[jayakris]

Maybe nobody has anything to tear out from the body of Indian hockey. So, maybe they will leave it and go away. And, then maybe some capable coach will be brought in to develop the team. And, maybe nobody will try to obstruct that coach. Pay his fees on time. One can only hope.

High hopes. I see not a single Indian hockey expert or newspaper scribe, or anybody, EVER mentioning that there should be a criterion of proven achievement in hiring a coach. NEVER. Heck, I have been talking for years out here about this and I don't have a single convert from the readers of this forum yet. It is always the talk about doing what we cannot do easily - the pet answers like grassroot changes and all that. For 35 years I have been hearing of grassroot changes, since "grass roots" went away from hockey. Like such massive changes happen in India in anything. May be I am the one with the wrong opinion. We are not going to get a proven coach, ever. I am resigned to that fact, and expecting us to slowly and steadily go down to the bottomless pit to be buried, as we have been dead for a long time already. How depressing. Jay

[prasen9]

You do not need a convert. I agree with you that we need a coach who has done things and preferably made a lower ranked team better. I just did not say that clearly before, perhaps.

[jayakris]

No, you were always there as the only one with some similar thinking. So you were never a convert, prasen

[ssp]

Jay, it would be great to have a decent coach, but the idiots who pull the strings won't let it happen. They will mess about with payments, equipment and selections. After all they managed to let Ric Charlesworth go and then chose Nobbs over Roelant Oltmans!

Colin Batch has done a fantastic job with Belgium, but he had several advantages over Nobbs or Brasa. Firstly he has disciplined players who are willing to run for 70 mins. He has really good domestic league which is competitive and now producing really good players. Charlesworth may have got us into the top 6 or 8, but not with some of the players in this squad. he would not have tolerated such inferior quality. I don't know what he could have done with lack of fight though. Perhaps it is back to the selections again. If he could see the apathy, maybe he would have dropped the deadwood.

In summary, I agree with you but we also need the idiots to go away, so that the selection is transparent and the coach picks players that are going to listen to him. The idiots wouldn't let Brasa check out the talent available by keeping him away from domestic tournaments. That sums up the huge obstacles that even a top coach has to overcome.

I feel the lack of fight shown by the players here will deter a top coach to apply in the future. Which coach wants to go from winning Olympic Golds or WCs to come 11-12th?

[jayakris]

Sure, not everybody would come to India. But there are plenty of top notch coaches who will still die to coach India. They have to be fools not to, if we can give the right salary. OK, Let us try something based on my achievement criteria. Pick every coach that fits the criterion out there and score them, giving points like (10 7 3 1) for (G S B Semi) at Olympics, and (7 5 2 1) for the same at world cups and (7 5 2) for champions. Add up the scores and rank order them. Give me their numbers and an authorization to spend up to $200K in salary per year. I will call them in the rank order. Can I take a bet that I will not go beyond 5 or 6 phone calls before I will have a coach who is ready to get on a flight next week to Delhi to sign up to coach these same idiot players from India?

So, let us not give up saying that we won't get a top coach. Or that our players are not uncoachable. Leave it to the coach to decide that. But the other thing you say is very correct. Even if our PM Manmohan Singh decides to authorize me to do the above, there is no guarantee that our hockey mandarins will allow the coach to survive. They will nickel and dime him to death and he will out of India in a few months

Jay