Bottling her feelings, Janneke Schopman made a reasonably forthright assertion after the Indian girls’s hockey crew’s loss to Japan on Friday that shattered her crew’s hopes of qualifying for the Paris Olympics. The head coach believed her crew, ranked sixth on the earth, had the standard to be there. “So that is on me, because I think we should have been there,” she mentioned.
File picture of former Indian girls’s hockey coach Sjoerd Marijne.(Getty Images)
Perhaps extra so given their efficiency on the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the place the ladies’s hockey crew cooked up some of the feel-good, fourth-place tales for India on the Games. The glorious outing introduced with it the promise of better urge for food from the crew, which can have proven indicators of growth by way of the model of play beneath Dutch coach Schopman however has evidently stagnated in outcomes since.
Stay tuned for all the most recent updates on Ram Mandir! Click right here
Peformances in key tournaments have dipped (joint-Ninth in 2022 World Cup, bronze at 2022 Commonwealth Games, bronze at Asian Games final yr), whereas the provision line of gamers in specialised roles seems to have dried up. In Ranchi, the 0-1 loss within the third-place playoff dashed hopes of that includes in a 3rd straight Olympics.
Sjoerd Marijne, who was head coach at Tokyo earlier than his then assistant coach Schopman took over, mentioned he was most disillusioned for the women and the coach “because they worked hard just for this goal”.
“I had just hoped that what we achieved in the Olympics, they can proceed with it,” the Dutchman mentioned over cellphone. “It’s really a pity that the team didn’t qualify. But now, the evaluation has to be precise. Use this time to be critical, but also constructive.
“From the team that I had, 5-6 girls aren’t there, and they had a lot of experience. In the last few years, Janneke had to renew the team. The young girls, I don’t think, have that experience to play these kind of matches. I don’t want to put it on the youngsters, because they did well. But our team in Tokyo was a little bit more experienced. And that made the difference.”
Schopman has had to oversee a transition phase but has also been inclined towards blooding in younger faces. The absence of experienced forward Vandana Katariya and midfielder Sushila Chanu (both injured) was felt at the FIH Women’s Olympic Qualifiers. Deep Grace Ekka’s absence is shrouded in mystery and Schopman has also made some big selection moves in phasing out star forward Rani Rampal and long-time dragflicker Gurjit Kaur.
“I can not choose these selections from the skin,” Marijne said. “Of course, having experience is important. But you also can’t keep playing with the same team. You have to renew and refresh.”
Somewhere in that renewal process, this team has been left poorer in terms of quality strikers and specialised dragflickers. India’s five matches in the qualifiers, and the Asian Games semi-final defeat to China, reflected that. The team had just four field goals across the five matches in Ranchi. When they did fashion creative chances from flashes of individual brilliance, they were far from clinical inside the circle.
More worrying is the dearth of genuine dragflickers to convert penalty corners (India had nine against Japan). Other than young Deepika — plucked out of the juniors last year and planted as the senior team’s primary dragflicker — and a few scarce back-up options, the flicking cupboard is bare.
“When you solely have 1-2 specialists to take PCs, it is a large problem,” Marijne said. “You need to have more. It’s not easy, but you need to develop them. And that’s what Netherlands and Belgium did by getting in dragflick specialist coaches.
“PCs are among the many important goal-scoring weapons in at this time’s hockey. And after we do not rating targets, PCs or area targets, how can the crew win?” Dilip Tirkey, Hockey India president, said.
That also raises the question about the talent pool and quality of players coming into the system through the grassroots and juniors, especially in specialised roles.
“Teams with specialists are dominating world hockey. We should work on this. That has been our lesson from this match. We should plan a programme and work in direction of it for the subsequent two years,” Tirkey, former India captain, said.
The road ahead, without the Olympics to aim at and with the next World Cup, CWG and Asian Games in 2026, will be critical. Some senior players of this team are on the last few legs of their careers while the contract of Schopman, whom the HI president has said can’t be blamed, runs until Paris.
Marijne felt the evaluation process must be quick, precise and decisive, keeping emotions aside and the 2028 Olympics in mind. The young players in the squad must be persisted with, he added, and given more matches and exposure to get better from this bitter experience.
The Dutchman reckoned India can use the model of Belgium — they did not qualify for Rio and Tokyo but have made it to Paris — to use the current step back for a future step forward.
“Belgium took that point to make up plans. The federation created a high-performance atmosphere and received in varied sorts of specialists in teaching roles,” he said.
“This is the time India can get one step forward of the opposite international locations. Because everybody else shall be busy with the Olympics. You should already begin planning for LA (2028 Los Angeles Games), and never delay that course of.”
Source: www.hindustantimes.com
