Results will come in 6-8 years: Oltmans

By Arnab Lall Seal, TNN

RANCHI: Roelant Oltmans, who has been appointed performance director of Indian hockey, believes it will take at least 6-8 years to achieve something big.

“It’s a big challenge for me and my first task will to be to create a structure from the grassroot level to the national side. It’s a long-term process and things cannot be changed overnight. I will have to look into the areas where development is required and how we can improve the infrastructure. The result will be visible only after 6-8 years and it’s important for the hockey lovers and the organizations to be patient,” said Oltmans, who is also the coach of HIL team Punjab Warriors.

The legendary Dutch coach also hopes to bring a specialist trainer for goalkeepers. “India have a number of good goalkeepers but they are not of the standard of Nicolas Jacobi and Jaap Stockmann. The team needs to improve here and I want to have a specialist who will train the goalkeepers to become world class,” he added.

Oltmans, who had coached the Dutch team that lifted the World Cup and the Atlanta Olympics goal in 1996, also sketched out some of the other areas that need to be improved in the Indian team.

“The base of the Indian players is their skill but what they lack is technical awareness, concentration and mental strength. Hockey is a game of 70 minutes and the players should not give up even if the team is down by one or two goals. Many of the matches including the final in HIL showed how teams can win even after conceding a goal. Another aspect of their game that has to be improved is trapping of the ball in difficult situations,” Oltmans said.

As for HIL, Oltmans said, “It was very tiring but was very good for the world hockey. It was a great opportunity for the Indian players to learn from the f