India has to wait longer for Brasa

By Sandeep Narayan in New Delhi

If selected, Spanish coach will not be able to join the hockey team before April

IT MAY be a bit early to hit the panic button but Indian hockey will still have to wait a few months before they receive their new messiah.

The Sports Ministry may still be dwelling on whether or not to hire Spanish mastercoach Jose Brasa but sources in the ad hoc committee have said that even if he was selected as coach he still won’t be able to join the team before April.

“ He said that he has some commitments to fulfil in Spain and that it would be impossible for him to join before April,” said a member of the IOA ad hoc committee.

“ Brasa has stated his conditions and demands to the ad hoc committee. It will be placed before the steering committee of the government after the seven- member technical committee of the ad hoc panel deliberates on it.” This sudden change of events could prove bad news for India as now they leave for Australia and New Zealand without a foreign expert.

A couple of days back it wouldn’t have mattered but after India’s loss to the Netherlands in the Gold Cup final, the need for a specialist has got bigger.

India’s performance in this tournament had been credible — they even produced flashes of brilliance — but Monday night’s performance can hardly be put under ‘ The Return of Indian Hockey’ bracket.

“ I really liked India’s performance but no one gets so many scoring chances in one match and that too against a team like Holland.

We’ve been tactically poor ever since the tournament started,” said a member of the selection committee.

He said India must start employing variations in their penalty corner conversions and during play.

“ It was hard to differentiate between the first penalty corner and the fifth because they all looked the same. I mean, the only way we were converting them was if the opposing goalkeeper deflected the ball to a player who then scored. We need to start rethinking our game plan. And for that we need to get Brasa quickly,” he added.

Meanwhile, coach- in- charge Harendra Singh said that it was way too early to be criticising his team; after all they did reach the finals.

“ I think we were equal to the challenge and we delivered. If my team goes down fighting, there is nothing to be disheartened about.

The Gold Cup has also proved to be a good platform to take our hockey forward,” Harendra said. “ Of course, there is a lot of scope for further improvement about which we will discuss with the team.” Harendra said India faced a major problem of conceding soft penalty corners besides some lapses in the defence, an area they need to improve.

India may have the talent — we saw them enjoy much of the ball possession on Monday — but they still need a person to channelise the talent and put it to proper use, otherwise they’re just moving in circles.

Courtesy: mailtoday