India will need man-to-man marking against Spaniards
VS Vinaya is the only Indian hockey player to have first-hand Spanish league experience. The senior Indian midfielder plays for Real Club de Polo in Barcelona, one of the premier teams in the Spanish league. Two of the key members of the present Spanish team here for the World Cup — midfielder Alex Fabregas and striker Pau Quemada — are his team mates at the club while he has played against almost all the others. With India taking on Spain in a crucial league encounter on Thursday, Vinaya talks to The Indian Express on what the team should do to keep the world number three side in check.
Spain are a tough team, and they play tough hockey like the Europeans do. They concentrate more on man-to-man markings and prefer to go on counter-attacks. Therefore, it will be very important for India to mark the Spanish players tightly. From what I saw in the last two games, the Indians are also playing a tight man-to-man marking game, something which I am sure coach (Jose) Brasa has inculcated in the team.
One very important thing that the Indians need to keep in mind is that the Spanish are very good in second-ball play, which means that instead of hitting the ball straight out to another player along the ground, they lift it slightly with a tap and then dodge past the opposition. This helps them not only keep ball in possession, but also weave past any wall, and skipper Pol Amat is very good at this. All the Spain players learn this trick. To counter this, the best way is to avoid keeping the stick flat out against the ground during tackles — it would be better to hold it diagonally to stop the ball from bouncing over.
At the same time, I think there are three players in this Spanish team who need to be marked tightly, and that will help India a lot. The key players for the team are Amat, Ramon Alegre and Pau Quemada. The last one is my team mate at Barcelona and I know him pretty well. His biggest strength is his drag-flick and India should try to avoid giving away penalty corners, because then he will be very tough to stop. I also think that the absence of Eduard Tubau will affect the team greatly because he was integral to their plans.
My personal view, however, is that India are playing far better hockey than they used to. The last two games they played really well, the tactics were all perfectly in place. I don’t count the loss to Australia as something serious because what matters is how the team performed, and I feel they played really well. My personal feeling is that it will be a close match for both teams, but India have the edge and should come out winners. The margin may not be huge, I think a 2-1 or 3-2 win would be fair result.
—As told to Uthra G Chaturvedi