Wherever major hockey tournaments are held, you cannot miss him. He is a keen watcher and shrewd follower of the game. He just watches the matches, does not even hold a pad or fashionable lap top. It’s all roving through eyes, reading through mind and recording in the deep layers of brain. Korea’s pioneering coach Kim Sam Ryul hardly talks much and elaborate anything. His simple theory in life, it seems, is ‘action talks’.
He proved it again at the Asian Games, where the ego of Indian hockey was once again buried in the dunes of Doha.
At the 1994 Asian Games, Kim’s team came up with three penalty corner variations in the final for which the Zafar Iqbal’s India had no answer. Three goals out of three penalty corners undid the Indian hopes of getting a gold in 28 years.
At Doha on Tuesday the master tactician trapped India on what India can do – play blind attacking hockey all the seventy minutes. Chinese were speeder and India was forced to outdo them. The trap worked. In a eagerness to match the Chinese’ fleet foot, India ran blindly while on each forward there appeared two Chinese on look out. The game thus was made open, leaving in its wake gaping holes in the Indian defence. Just three shots at goal – two field play and the other through the only penalty corner it got – Chinese were three goals up.
Kim, a sports graduate from our own National Institute of Patiala, is an old fox. I do not know whether FIH has recognized his services to the sport of hockey or not, but he richly deserves in term of merit. Making Korea win the first-ever Asiad gold in 1986 and then giving China its much deserved first-ever win over India.