Times of India: Will not worry about when I will be sacked: Marijne

By Manuja Veerappa

BENGALURU: It’s often said that every great dream begins with a dreamer and the Indian men’s hockey team has a new one – Sjoerd Marijne. The Dutchman, who joined the Indian campers at SAI, South Centre here on Friday, has ‘dream goals’ and will work with the belief that the goals can be reached.

“We have a dream goal and that is to win the 2020 Olympic Games. It doesn’t matter if it’s realistic or not; it’s our aim. If it’s our dream we have to make sure it’s going to be realistic. If I’m already saying that it’s not realistic, then I’m already setting a limit,” said the 43-year-old on Saturday.

Elaborating on the team’s goals, Marijne, a former rightback for Den Bosch, a premier Dutch hockey club, explained: “We have both long-term and short-term goals. Short-term goals is about every tournament. You don’t have to be number one 1 in the world to win tournaments. Argentina were not number one when they won the 2016 Olympic gold last year. Even if you’re World No.6, you want to win every tournament you go to. You don’t go to tournaments saying I want to be third. You want to win.”

Marijne, who was moved from the women’s team to the men’s set-up following the unceremonious exit of fellow Dutchman Roelant Oltmans earlier this month, admitted that one of the biggest challenges for him now is to get to know the players. “I know the players by name, but I don’t know how they react under pressure, how are they during tournaments. I have to experience all that now. That for me is one of the biggest challenges.”

Marijne, who was roped in for the women’s team on the re commendation from Oltmans earlier in the year, is confident that the only pressure that will weigh in will be that of self-expectation and India’s record of hiring and firing of foreign coaches if they don’t produce instant results is not a cause of worry . “I don’t feel the pressure because I’m concentrating on performance and the process. The pressure is from myself. I’m not thinking about whether I’m getting sacked. If I am, then I’m getting distracted from my job. That’s not why they hired me,” the coach countered.

Under Marijne, there will be a lot of emphasis on the development of young players. “It takes time to get to the level of the seniors, but you’ll never get to that level if you don’t play tournaments. But we have to watch the balance. What I like is internal competition. The higher the internal competition, the better the players will be. That always works the best.”

Marijne, who’s coaching career started with his home team’s youth team at the age of 18, will undergo his first test at the Asia Cup in Dhaka next month.