‘We need to do in 10 months what Aussies did in 20 years’: Coach

Uthra G Chaturvedi

If India’s new coach Michael Nobbs is to be believed, this team is merely 18 months away from becoming a strong force in world hockey again. The Australian is still coming to terms with India’s complicated hockey system but that doesn’t stop him from being confident of the players’ potential. “My initial aim is to help the team qualify for the Olympics, but I can say with full confidence that, within 18 months, the best teams in the world will be thinking twice about facing India,” Nobbs told The Indian Express after a training session on Wednesday.

Nobbs admits he was quite taken aback when he faced 100-odd players on his first day in charge last month, “that was quite a sight and I did not know for a few minutes what to do or say,” he recalls. Nobbs is back for his second camp, with the probables pruned down to 48 and he wants the players to drain themselves out in the next six months if there has to be any hope of Olympics qualifications.

“The challenge is much bigger than I initially thought. I have always said that Australian hockey is a lot like Indian hockey and so we can stick to the Indian style and still be on top. What I didn’t say is that in the past 20 years, the Australians have taken Indian hockey and modernized it so much that it has become a completely different style. That’s where Indian hockey has been left behind. We now have to do in the next 10 months what the Australians did in 20 years. That’s no small target,” he says, but is confident it can be done.

Ups and downs

“Every team in every sport in every country in the world goes through phases. No exceptions. It’s happened in Australia, both in hockey and cricket, and it’s happened to even a team like the Dutch and the Germans, who have perhaps the best sporting structure in the world; my job is to make sure the bad phase of Indian hockey is replaced by the good phase,” he says.

Nobbs admits that his five-year contract surprised him more than anyone else. “For me, five years will be longest I will be with any team. My philosophy has always been to take charge, identify the problems and provide solutions, move on. No coach can be expected to sustain his best with a single team beyond 3-4 years; even Ric Charlesworth found it extremely difficult in his second four-year-term with the Australian women,” he says.

No coach has got so much time with any team and Nobbs is clear what is expected of him. “I believe you learn coaching. And it comes with talking to the players, understanding them and making sure they understand you. Once that happens, rest fall into place.”

The Asian Champions Trophy in Ordos next month, he believes, will be the first test. “Either the team has to do really good or really bad there. If they do real good, it will mean we are on the road back to the top that much faster. If they do real bad, we will know how much more needs to be done,” he says.