Indian men’s hockey team’s poor performance and a medal less CWG since 2006 has brought chief coach Sjoerd Marijne under the scanner with Hockey India scheduling a performance review meeting later this week.
Some of the senior players led by skipper Manpreet Singh, PR Sreejesh and Rupinder Pal Singh, met top Hockey India officials and presented their explanation for the performance.
Indian hockey team has turned up with a medal from the CWG since 2006, but coming back empty handed from the Gold Coast CWG has not been entertained by Hockey’s top governing body in India which said that it won’t shy away from taking tough decisions after the review meeting.
According to a Hockey India official, not just the players, the coach’s performance will also be scrutinised and corrective measures will be taken, if needed, as three important tournaments — Champions Trophy, Asian Games and the season-ending World Cup — are lined up this year.
“The performance in Gold Coast is definitely not acceptable. It is below-par to say the least. We have been providing all facilities to the team but they just fail to deliver in big events,” the HI official said as reported by First Post
“We were one of the medal favourites but look how we performed against lower-ranked teams like Wales, Pakistan, New Zealand and England.”
Indian forward lineup failed to convert the chances, what possibly could be some easy goals, on the other hand, the defensive line leaked some easy goals in the starting minutes of the game, which costed heavily to the Manpreet-led, Marjine-coached Indian team.
It has been earlier reported that some senior players were unhappy with chief coach Marijne’s decision to blood youngsters like Vivek Sagar Prasad, Dilpreet Singh, Sumit, Gurinder Singh in place of experienced campaigners such as Sardar Singh and Ramandeep Singh in the CWG squad.
HI official said all these issues will be examined during the review meeting.
“Hockey is a team game and the coach is also accountable for players’ performances. It will be too early to comment anything but Sjoerd too will have to come up with answers for the poor show.”
HI has been ruthless in the approach of hiring and firing policy on foreign coaches, including Marijne’s foregoer Roelant Oltmans, Terry Walsh, Michael Nobbs and Ric Charlesworth.
Marijne is presently at his home in the Netherlands and is expected to join the national camp in Bengaluru from April 27. But sources said he would arrive in India only in the first week of May due to some visa issues.
