M.S.Unnikrishnan

Tribune News Service

Master coach of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Prof Horst Wein of Spain said the future of Indian hockey looked bleak unless Hockey India relied on restructuring the youth development.

Prof Horst Wein, who has held coaching assignments in five Olympic sports in 53 countries, and is a member of the Centre of Studies, Research and Development of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, said the level shown by the Indian hockey team these days was a direct reflection of the way the Indian players were approached in the past 20 years about the complexity and difficulty of the game of hockey. He said as a first solution to cure the “serious health problems” of Indian hockey, and to improve its performance levels in the long run, Hockey India has to restructure quickly the grass-root hockey, including scrapping the 11-a-side competition completely for children.

“The full game played by children of less than 14 years of age is the cancer of Indian hockey”, said the famed coach who was on his first visit to India to attend the International Sports Medicine Conference in Delhi.

“For too long, the rush to play the full game has obstructed the natural development of young players in India. Thirty years ago, Spain had the same problem but measures were taken in the early 80s to abolish the 11-a-side competition for less than 14-year-old players. As a consequence, Spanish hockey improved,” he told The Tribune.

He emphaised that “India has to learn that youth coaching is a specialised affair and that hockey urgently needs specialists to deal with the developing child. The schools follow the same model of teaching the game as 60 years ago. Hockey India should re-think the way children are approached step by step to the complexity and difficulty of the game”, he added. “As long as Hockey India continues to oblige the 10 to 13-year-old kids to play the full game on the big field, no progress will be made”, he cautioned. Prof Wein said it was the tradegy of modern coaching, including in Asia, that the “coaches think of their players, instead of stimulating them to think for themselves. The young players should be taught how to fish”, he added.

Horst Wein said he had a long chat with veteran Olympian R.S.Bhola, and was keen to meet former International Olympic Committee member Ashwani Kumar.

“Ashwani Kumar wanted to restructure Indian hockey in the 80’s, by bringing in European coaches. He had a vision for Indian hockey”, he explained. Prof Wein said Indian players were “fantastic” skill-wise.

He said Jose Brasa had got an Indian team with “bad habits” and the players were older too. “So the coach cannot do much improvement with this bunch”, he noted. Prof Wein will spell out clearly the measures to be taken to improve Indian hockey in his forthcoming book – “The Key to Better Indian Hockey”.