It may appear a peculiar situation — a foreigner imparting his training to a bunch of hockey players in a language which several of his wards can’t
even understand. Even English. But that has not deterred Jose Brasa. The Spaniard has come up with a unique way to make things easier — he has begun to take lessons in Hindi.
So don’t be surprised to find a smattering of the Indian tongue in conversations with him. Words like badiyan or shabaash are now commonplace in his vocabulary.
So determined is Brasa that nothing is lost in translation, he kicks off every training session with one sentence in Hindi, the diction improving with each passing day. Much like Kabir Khan from Chak De! India (even the growing five o’clock shadow is similar), Brasa’s latest gem is, Hum log mehnat karenge, aur hum log jeetenge (We’ll work hard, and we will win)!
The 59-year-old insists that learning Hindi has nothing to do with improving his communication with the players, since they have no problem in understanding what he’s talking about. “I’m learning Hindi because it’s important to get to the hearts of the players. And to do that it’s necessary to speak in the same language.” As a oncelong-serving male coach of a women’s team, Brasa knows what he is talking about.
Brasa reveals that he sought the services of a Hindi teacher almost as soon as he took over as chief coach. But he had to wait for quite a long time before getting one. “My classes started quite late. After three to four months of talking with authorities, they finally appointed a lady who’s helping me master the language.”
The chief coach also revealed that he had identified a female sports psychologist for the time, but realised in time that this was a men’s team. “She was a trained psychologist from the UK. Now we are looking for a male psychologist since this is a men’s team.”