“We are not a top ranked team here. But we are certainly prepared well for the task and live upto our own target and objectives. We respect our rivals and want to give everyone of them a decent fight. As far as I am concerned, except France all other teams are equally balanced”.
This is how Lothar Duelberg, Manager of the Netherlands Antilles sums up their mission in the Kazan Qualifier.
Their team has been in the city for the last one week, going all out for practice.
“Netherlands Antilles is a conglomeration of five islands. We have a hockey league there, but not very strong. And the youngsters mostly prefer to stay in Dutch and follow studies. We avail this situation and train our players in Dutch itself. Further, the Dutch have a strong, and perhaps the world’s best league competition and most of the players here take part in the league. This is the best part of our preparations”, Lothar gives a perspective of Netherlands Antilles’s hockey dynamics.”
“Our resources are limited, in terms of finance and human, and also very difficult to organize things as players are in Dutch and the organization is in the Netherlands Antilles. Somehow we trade of both the benefits”.
Except two players others in the team are college students, we cannot therefore round the world whole year as many other teams could afford to. But we are well prepared, mind you, signs of Lothar.
India will take on Netherlands Antilles on Sunday on its second encounter.