Brasa flies home with heavy heart

Uthra G Chaturvedi

When he took charge of the Indian hockey team in May, 2009; Jose Brasa had a mission. He wanted India to win the Asian Games and thus book a berth for London Olympics. Stubborn and aggressive, he wanted the best possible facilities for his team.

Almost a year and a half later, the Spaniard has mellowed down. The fact that India missed the Asian Games final by a whisker certainly has got something to do with it.

On Monday, a day before his contract runs out and he flies back home in Spain, Brasa seemed subdued. Sitting in the lobby of an old Delhi hotel, though disillusioned from all quarters, he is nevertheless keen on continuing as the India coach.

“I will definitely like to continue, yes, but only if there is proper planning. So far just about 50 per cent of the plan that I had submitted in January, 2009 has been implemented. I would like to continue because this is a bunch of players who have the potential to be on the podium in London. But for that we need planning and training,” he says. With the renewal of contract in the hands of Sports Ministry, Brasa flies home with an uncertain mind.

The coach has already met the Sports Authority of India director general Sayan Chatterjee, and has been informed that the Sports Ministry will take a final call. The ministry, on its part, has called a meeting on December 3 to work out the future course of action. “We have called a meeting of all the sports federations and the government observers and SAI officials on December 3 to get their inputs on all the foreign coaches across sports. We will review their performances and consider the inputs before taking a decision,” joint secretary in the Sports Ministry Injeti Srinivas said.

Brasa, meanwhile, insists that India lost out on the Asiad gold more due to the lack of proper planning than anything else. “We wanted practice matches against Australia; Charlesworth has said he was waiting for us in Perth. We wanted to travel to Guangzhou much earlier to get used to the pitch. I still don’t know what happened, why it was canceled. These are things that affect preparations,” he says.

His run-ins with those in power — the federation, the SAI, the ministry officials — has been well documented, but he now believes that it was all worth it. “For me the most special are the players. I don’t think there was any problem with selections, and the entire team management and the players were working together towards on goal — taking Indian hockey ahead. I have seen the improvements in this team, and I have no problems with the stand I have taken,” he says.

Perhaps, that’s why he is surprised — hurt, more than anything else — with recent accusations of mental torture by India captain Rajpal Singh. “I have never shouted at my players, I respect them more than anything else. I have never ill-treated Rajpal or any other player. As for captaincy, I have always said that the entire team and management wanted Prabhjot as captain during the World Cup but Hockey India named Rajpal as skipper. But whoever becomes captain, I will always have a problem with a fixed captain, because that is not the way things happen in hockey today,” he says.

Given a chance again, however, he is sure there will be no problem working with Rajpal. As also with national coach Harendra Singh, who has often been painted as the man behind Brasa’s problems.

“We are very different people, that’s true. We work differently; I am very straight-talking and blunt while Harendra prefers talking things around, but at the end of the day we are both working towards the same target. He is very passionate about the game and the team and if the end is the same, the ways don’t matter,” he says.

Brasa seems hurt but not bitter about the Indian experience. All he hopes now is a second chance, but this time on his own terms.