Fresh from Olympics qualification, Indian hockey's revelry has just about wrapped up. The players' coffers have witnessed unprecedented cash inflow. Coach Michael Nobbs has had a pay-rise. FIH and HI are happy. Fans are happy. IHF and Nimbus are partially happy. But while the 2008 nightmare has been pronounced dead, London Olympics will either produce a twinkle or well up more tears in the eyes of Indian hockey.
India have used the doormat of London Olympics to wipe its feet clean. The dirt got wedged into the soles when they missed qualification for Beijingin 2008 – an embarrassing first in India's Olympics history. But it won't be criminal to admit that feeble opponents in the 2012 qualifiers made India's task tad easier.
Once they avoided the hardy Canadaand Poland in the finals, a ticket to London was more or less confirmed against Francein the final. And the 8-1 scoreline put a seal on that impression in a captivating atmosphere at the Major Dhyanchand National Stadium.
But the road leading up to London is not short of stumbling blocks. A possible four-nation tourney in Pakistan, test tournaments in London, Sultan Azlan Shah Cup and finally the Olympics in July-August – there will be a yawning difference between what India got served in the qualifiers and what awaits them ahead. So it's time for Nobbs and his boys to run a reality check and set practical, not ambitious, targets.
A shrewd operator coach Nobbs has been so far, the Australian isn't counting his chickens yet, and thinks a realistic target would be 2016 Olympic Games.
"When I first came to India, everyone was happy if we just qualified for the Olympics. Now everyone I talk to asks 'what color medal are we going to win?' So we need to manage our expectations as we are realistically preparing for the 2016 Games," he said.
"David and I have been preparing the team for six months, while the other teams we are competing against have been doing so for between six and eight years. It is probably a little unrealistic to expect that we are certain medal contenders," the Aussie explained.
And it's not rocket science to squeeze that fact out. A team that last won an Olympic medal 32 years ago in 1980, is playing Olympics after a gap of eight years, has a coach who's just six months into his job and is fraught with managerial controversies comes nowhere near to be a medal contender. In fact, hockey in Indiawill get a big lift if the team were to finish in top six among the top 12 top nations competing in London.
Zafar Iqbal, member of India's last Olympic medal – a gold – in 1980 seconds that viewpoint. "It would be little too much to expect the team to be number one from the No. 10 position in the Olympics, but at least we hope to better our rankings there," Zafar said after India qualified for the London Games.
The next phase for India hockey is probably the toughest yet. In fact, that's where they have fallen prostrate – in sustaining a good run, to be consistent. It puffs the chest all right to see a packed house but to maintain that tempo, and against the top teams, is where we have faltered. It happened in the World Cup, in the Commonwealth Games and in the Champions Challenge-I most recently. In that light, wins like the one in the Asian Champions Trophy are nothing but a flash in the pan and should draw our attention to a realistic Olympic target, which will be a top-six finish.
But where this team looks distinctly better than Indian outfits of the last decade is fitness. David John has done a remarkable job with the boys who look much fitter than in the past. But whether they binge and get out of shape in the euphoria of Olympic qualification or see it as a working example of 'better fitness, finer results' needs to be looked at from close quarters. That will also help India become less dependent on goals from penalty corners, which was the case in the Olympics qualifiers, although 23 field goals out of 44 the hosts scored shows considerable improvement.
Nobbs is on the ball here as well.
"The next phase of fitness is going to be a difficult phase. The style of play won't change a great deal, but we have to improve on our fitness leaps and bounds. The players have done a great job so far," the coach opined.
Plus, India's defence needs a lot of fine-tuning as well.
If the opponents in the qualifiers were nowhere near India's talent, then there can't be an excuse for conceding eight goals in the tournament. India conceded one or more goals in each of the six matches they played and if those gaps are not plugged before the Olympics, the goal-leak may become uncontainable.
And what goes without saying is that hockey needs a unified governing body, not factions warring over administrative rights. That will go a long way to put Indian hockey on a world pedestal where it belonged until 1980.
So where does all that point to for Indian hockey, what is or what should be our realistic Olympics target? A difficult question, but one that has an answer: 'An upward trend but not a medal before 2016.'
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