Jose Brasa joins World Series Hockey brigade
MUMBAI: Jose Brasa will soon be back in India. The Spaniard, whose contract was not renewed by the sports ministry after the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games despite the national team’s good showing, will be coaching one of the eight teams in the inaugural edition of World Series Hockey, scheduled to begin from December 17.
He’s not the only one. Dutch coaching great Roelant Oltmans, who lost out to Michael Nobbs for the Indian chief coach’s job, will be there too, along with Andrew Meredith of Germany. The other names are Harendra Singh, Rajinder Singh, Vasudevan Bhaskaran, Jude Felix and Gundeep Singh. The coaches will play a key role in terms of advising the franchisee during the all critical ‘draft process’ of player selection.
Brasa, who guided India to silver medal at last year’s Commonwealth Games and a bronze at the 2010 Asiad, said he was looking forward to the WSH assignment, his past bitter experience with the hockey mandarins notwithstanding. “I never had any problems with the players, my problem was with the officials. I can’t wait to meet the players, it would be great to train them again,” Brasa told TOI from Spain.