Coming to Madrid from India was like stepping into a freezer and that is the best way I can describe our experience in the Spanish capital so far as we prepare for our campaign in the Men’s Olympic qualifying tournament here from tomorrow (Tuesday).

The low temperatures in Madrid had us stumped initially and our training on our arrival here was hampered. In fact, our boys had the rare experience of practicing in the snow the other day when the temprature dipped below zero.

The point I am trying to make is that the weather conditions could affect the performances of not just India, but also the Asian teams who are obviously more attuned to playing in warmer conditions.

Anyway, looking ahead to the tournament, I can say that it is going to be tough all the way through for all the teams. For India, though, the first game, against Belgium on Tuesday will be a difficult outing and I am hoping that we will continue to have some bright sunshine.

However, the match is scheduled for a 6 pm (10.30 pm IST) start when it is bound to be extremely cold, given the fact that today, the day temperature has been hovering between 3 and 7 degrees Celcius.

If this column reads like a weather report, then it cannot be helped as the conditions will definitely have a bearing on the results.

We have not played Belgium in the recent times and so I am not sure what to expect. But then, being a European team, I expect Belgium to play a defensive game and our forwards would need to combine well to break through. We will go all out to take three points from this game, and that should provide us the momentum.

To say that our match against Pakistan later in the week would be the “main game” would be wrong, as considering the fact that this is a qualifying tournament for Athens Olympics, every match is of equal importance.

I do not expect any easy outings against Malaysia, New Zealand and Canada, but at this juncture, I would like to take one game and one step at a time. The bigger picture is to qualify for the Olympics, but to achieve the target, we need to first win matches. It is as simple as that.

So, how good is our team? I think, we have prepared as well and as much as we could, and I am happy to say that we have no injury worries, except that our key midfield player, Ignace Tirkey, had a tooth extraction this morning, but he will be fit to play tomorrow.

As regards penalty corners, this is something we have been working on, both offensive and defensive. No purpose will be served by talking about how we are missing Jugraj Singh. On the other hand, I will say that players like Len Aiyappa, Baljit Dhillion, Dilip Tirkey and Kanwalpreet Singh, have been working on penalty corners and I am hopeful that we will come good in this tournament.

Last week, we played a practice game against Spain that we drew 3-3, but then, I would not attach too much significance to the result. In these games, the idea is to ascertain the fitness and form of our players as well as those of our opponents. We also tend to avoid injuries and hence, you cannot equate these practice games to a full-blown match.

I do appreciate the fact that people back home would be keen to know about India’s chances in this tournament, and to this I will say that at the end of the day on Tuesday, we will know for certain where we stand. The opening day will witness all the 12 teams in action and it will give us a clear indication as to everybody’s strengths and weaknesses. So, it is best we wait before jumping to conclusions or making predictions.

But rest assured that India would be going all out to first qualify for Athens by finishing in the top seven. At this stage, I am quite confident that we will be able to achieve our primary target.
(above column was sent to DJ in the night of 1st March, Monday).

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