Lessons to be learned from Santiago

(by Bob Davidzon, Project Leader Promoting Indian Hockey)

With reference to the criticism expressed by the coaching staff of the National hockey team ( men ), after missing the qualification for Beijing, the following may be of interest to your readers:

Besides the “National Game of India“, hockey is an international game, with international rules both for playing the game and conducting the tournaments.

Code of Conduct

At international tournaments, team managers take the responsibility by signing the Code of Conduct on behalf of the team assuring that their players and their staff will adhere to it.

Clear rules about disciplinary consequences of awarded cards are spelled out to them as well.
It is in the power of the manager to agree with the Tournament Director on a time and venue to have the compulsory “reading out” of the sentences to the players involved in an incident and that does not have to take place “in the middle of the night “…..

The Code of Conduct is also very clear that all participants in a tournament (officials and players ) undertake that public statements at home or abroad (be it verbally or in print) must be “fair, constructive and reasonable and must not involve a personal attack on another player, umpire, appointed official or administrator”. Non adherence can lead to sanctions by the FIH for the persons concerned and the utterances by the coaching staff of India upon its return are at the moment under review and sanctions may apply.

Rules knowledge

The knowledge of the rules and the tournament briefing for the team and its staff was (as with some other teams) well below par , which leads to unjustified criticism on and appeal to the umpires and possibly “human” reaction from their side.

The level of abuse and criticism of umpires that seems to be acceptable in India is certainly not the international standard. It is not only the players that are at fault in this respect. It starts from the top of Federations, through dignitaries and team management downwards. Players should not be given the excuse to refer to the attitude of those who should be role models in this respect.

Tournament composition

New formats of (qualifying) tournaments are widely circulated to member countries for consultation well in advance before a decision is taken whether they come into force or not. That is the time that input should be given. It does help the concentration of the players to query the format after the decision has been taken.

Match schedule

Match schedules for (qualifying) tournaments are circulated well in advance to the participating countries. Then is the time to put in any requests that may be accommodated or not. Once participating in the tournament it does not help to put doubt in players’ minds that they are faced with an “unfair” schedule.

Acclimatization

The (medical) standard rule for proper acclimatization is 1 day per 1 hour time difference.
Falling short on this rule for whatever reason (finance, planning?) is running a risk with a price tag that can be high.

Travel arrangements

Athletes deserve proper attention. Airlines should serve the players at their reasonable convenience and athletes should not be used to fill various cheaper flights. Proper and timely planning is a MUST. Clear job descriptions for Team managers have been made available by the FIH (including travel arrangements) but unfortunately have hardly been applied.

Help

Any coach in charge of any national team should select the best players available
and surround himself with the best staff specialists, selected on merit only . He should apply the latest knowledge regarding physical training, video analysis of games and training, mental training, medicals, competitor analysis etc. and in case not mastering any of these areas himself, take all the help available to achieve the maximum result.

May these (free) lessons learned from Santiago help the Indian women team to qualify for the Olympic Games in Beijing at their upcoming tournament in Kazan