New Delhi: The void of missing the Beijing Olympics may never be fulfilled for Indian hockey but watching the team at practice instils the belief that India's return to the Olympics is on the cards. And the coach of the men’s team, Michael Nobbs, fully endorses it.
"I want to make sure that everything we do is perfect. I just want to keep winning. If you win, everybody's happy, the boys are happy,” Nobbs said while talking to reporters at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium on Friday. “Winning is a nebulous type of target. It's more the journey that you do properly that will produce the results that you expect. Everything you do should be towards winning.”
Nobbs recalled his days as a player at the Olympics, when he won gold for Australia at the Los Angeles Games in 1984. "When I was in the Olympic team, I hated running. But every step I took, I felt that's one less that I have to do. The preparation you do determines a lot of success," said Nobbs as he supervised a training session ahead of the February 18-26 Olympic qualifiers.
The memories of India losing to Great Britain in the qualification tournament for the 2008 Olympics still haunts Indian hockey fans. When Nobbs was reminded of it, he promised a 100 per cent effort from the team.
"[If India miss out], it won't be from lack of trying. It just won't be that," he said. “It would be just bloody unlucky or something goes stupidly wrong somewhere. But it would certainly not be from lack of effort or trying.”
Nobbs also suggested that he has the support of the players, who now share their concerns and have become a lot more open. "They [players] now tell me when they are injured or sore instead of hiding it. That's really important for a coach.
“Because if they are injured, they don't play well but it affects the team's performance as well, and that's because they want to stay in the team. They think they'll be dropped if they are injured. But we've now told them if there is any problem or anything, you tell us and we can fix that with our brilliant sports medicine and physios."
Nobbs said that India’s training was more a match simulation as he wanted players to stay fit for the length of a game. "We plan our programmes so that the players play a game in training. So everything we are doing in training is match simulation. We require them to be fit for 80 minutes, even though they are playing only 40 minutes [due to rolling substitutions]."
When asked to compare his wards to the world champion Australian team, Nobbs admitted his countrymen were stronger. "We are just not big enough. We've got a few boys [who are big]. The nutrition side of it is being worked upon at the moment,” he said. "One of the things they [Australians] do slightly better than us in the skill department in their speed of attack, because they are physically strong; they run through players. They break tackles better. Running into an Australian is like running into a brick wall. We are not at that level yet, but we are very skillful and I think our skills are probably better.
Things are improving on India's defence line as well and Nobbs called for the players to concentrate on what they are good at. "Things are improving [in defence]. We played a practice match the other night, which was 10-nil. So they [defenders] didn't let a goal in," he said. "David [John, physical trainer] and I have only been here for not even quite six months yet. We've worked on the things that we are good at. We want to make them really good. The things we are not good at, we will probably never be great at. But we will get them to a level that are reasonable."
Asked whether he learned any Hindi yet, a jovial Nobbs said, "I'm going to do some Hindi courses after the [Olympic] qualifiers. I have learned chai [tea], but they [players] want to teach me all the bad ones."
India, Canada, France, Singapore, Poland and Italy will vie for a solitary spot for the London Games, which begin later this year. Besides the men's team, Indian eves will also be part of the women's Olympic qualification which will run simultaneously at the same venue. They will be vying for an Olympic berth against South Africa, Italy, Canada, Ukraine and Poland.
Both the men's and women's Indian teams open their campaign on February 18 against Ukraine and Singapore, respectively.
Comments
0 comment