As Indian men’s hockey team get ready to depart for FIH World Hockey League Semifinals in Belgium, midfield mainstay Ramandeep Singh feels the new coach Paul Van Ass has created a positive and competitive scenario in the squad. Which Resulted with players been on their toes and not taking their place for granted. The Indian side is about to face France in their WSL semis opener on 20th of June.
Ramandeep who has been regular Indian team from past two years has all the praise for the new India coach Paul Van Ass.
“Paul is working on the team keeping the all important RIO Olympics. He is using the immediate tournaments to understand and work on the team accordingly in the next one year. He is very futuristic in his approach and this is creating a very positive and competitive scenario within all of us” Ramandeep Said.
With the team eyeing for a podium finish at the 2016 RIO Olympics, is taking every tournament from here as a learning ground to understand itself as a team and how do they deliver under pressure.
Ramandeep feels the Indian side had a decent outing in last few tournaments. As they bagged bronze, defeating giants Australia by a big margin in the Azlan Shah Cup. While they won the home series against Japanese side 3-0. Which has grown new positivity in the squad.
“I am witnessing a new energy in the team in the recent past. We now look at challenges in a different manner, challenges we feel we can overcome easily. This I will credit to our recent performance plus the new skills we are inculcating in our game. These days we are working on our finishing once we enter the opponents D. The aim is to put the ball across the goal line and for which we are working on many variations between ourselves. The idea is, we should react immediately without wasting time”. he added.