There is a strong ongoing debate, “Whether India should go in for a foreign hockey coach or not”. My own opinion is why not. The reasons. well, first and foremost is the simple layman reason, that no Indian coach has been able to produce results, so why not give chance to a foreign coach. May not be a sound enough reason. You may say, we had a foreign coach earlier; Gerard Rach. Well he was foreign but no coach with no credentials.

Ric Charlseworth of Australia has recently been associated with Indian hockey and deserves to be appointed a full time Chief Coach. He has proven credentials both for men and women hockey. He has results to back up his claim to be a successful coach. We should have no ego problems in appointing him at the helm.

He has been a player par excellence. My personal opinion is; “A good player cum good coach is always better than a good coach only”. His personal experience as a player is of great asset as he would have seen various situations from close quarter. A number of game situations have the happy knack of repeating themselves after a few matches.

The other day during the conduct of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Hockey Tournament in the capital I observed a game situation where a forward missed a goal he could have scored.

The Game Situation

A hard cross from the right wing right across the goal mouth may be a yard or two infront of the goal keeper. The ball could not be stopped by the defender standing close to the goalkeeper. The attacker standing immediately behind the defender also could not stop the ball as he had no reaction time once the ball was missed by the defender. The attacker anticipating the cross should have actually tried to come infront of the defender to connect it into the goal. If he was unable to do so he should have taken a step or two backwards to get away from the defender. This would have given him more space and thereby more reaction time once the ball was missed by the defender. One may say it was a small mistake but it is the difference between a goal scored or not. A missed opportunity to score a goal cannot be a small mistake. The player may not have realized this mistake but a good player cum coach would have and pointed it out to the erring player.

Most of our players are still under the “Phoren Phobia” . They tend to listen to a foreign coach more than an Indian coach. Well, there may be a few senior players who may have an ego problem with a foreign coach.

Some of the set piece situations executed by the foreign teams suggest as to how much thought and practice had gone into those executions. The ability of the foreign coaches to think ahead and sincerely put the thought process to practicality seems to be more than our coaches. My personal opinion is that the strategy formulated and tactics employed after studying the opponents by foreign teams under their coaches have proved to be more effective than our coaches. Also we must remember that the knitty gritty or the nuts and bolts are as important as strategy and tactics. Each minor mistake pointed out and corrected by the coach may lead to a potential goal scoring opportunity. Even a single mistake of not being able to stop / receive a ball should not be taken casually. It must be drilled into each player that a missed ball is a goal missed.

Another aspect which is very important but not given due importance is stopping the ball vs receiving the ball. A player may feel happy and satisfied if he stops every pass or hit directed at him. But trick lies in receiving the ball; which means that stopping the ball in a manner that you simultaneously get into a position to do what you want to do next. Whereas stopping the ball and then getting into a position for the next act are two distinct movements resulting in wastage of precious time though a fraction of a second. By receiving the ball correctly you may be able to dodge a player, immediately be in a position to take a hit at the goal or make use of a fleeting opportunity to exploit a gap to pass the ball to one of your players.

The motto of a coach that needs to be hammered into every player’s mind should be , “any mistake committed how so ever minor is a goal missed”.