Manpreet Singh interview: Hockey star on marshalling the midfield, India's 'give-and-go' style and much more

For any youngster, filling the giant boots of Sardar Singh would be a daunting prospect. The 31-year-old has not just been a mainstay of the Indian team, he has been its soul for the past few years. Yet, when India coach Sjoerd Marijne decided to employ the veteran warhorse as a fullback at the recently-concluded Asia Cup, the responsibility of marshalling the midfield fell on the young shoulders of Manpreet Singh.

In fact, not just Sardar’s shoes, Manpreet also had to fill in the enormous shoes of PR Sreejesh after being handed captaincy of the team in the absence of the goalkeeper, who is recuperating after having had surgery on his knee.

Manpreet did not disappoint — he was the engine that powered India’s run to the Asia Cup trophy that India lifted after 10 years.

Asked about having to play in Sardar’s position, Manpreet told Firstpost, “As a midfielder my role was to feed the ball to the forwards. There was no pressure on me at the Asia Cup. I don’t think about the switch (Sardar moving into defence) as one having any negative connotation, neither does Sardar. The switch was really beneficial to the team, which is why we did it."

“Sardar was moved to defence because of his experience. He has the capability to play long passes from the defence. If the rival team is pressing us in our half, he can easily handle it. He can also lead the team from the back. He’s playing at a position where he can see the whole pitch in front of him. He can delegate who needs to mark which rival player,” he said on Thursday before adding that India coach Marijne would take a call soon on whether to employ Sardar as a fullback in future events.

Another facet that stood out during the Asia Cup was India’s style of playing, something Marijne has branded as ‘give-and-go hockey’.

“Counter-attacking is our strength. The team which played at the Asia Cup had a mixture of young and experienced players. We played a really attacking brand of hockey this time around, which fetched us a lot of goals. Our brief was to trap the ball with the first touch and pass with the second. Marijne had instructed us not to hang on to the ball too long and maintain our structure.

“In modern hockey, teams prefer to rotate the ball faster because the longer you hold on to the ball, you invite more pressure from the opponents. All teams are now trying the ‘give and go’ style of hockey. I believe that with this style of hockey, we will do even better in future,” said the 25-year-old, who recently signed with Red Bull.

Manpreet added that while there was not too much of a difference in the coaching styles of Marijne and his predecessor Roelant Oltmans — who was sacked in September due to India’s ‘unsatisfactory results’ in 2016 and 2017 — the former liked to take a backseat and let the players

“There isn’t too much of a difference between Oltmans and Marijne because both are from the same country. Marijne is just younger and he keeps telling us to pass the ball as soon as we receive it. Importantly, under Marijne, the players have the freedom to decide what is to be done on the field while the coach only assists,” he said.

Be that as it may, the new coach and the new ‘give and go’ style has fetched India a title, albeit just a continental one in a competition where Malaysia were realistically the only threat to India. Bigger tests await. After all, the next few months will see India play in prestigious, and infinitely more competitive, tournaments like the Hockey World League Final on home soil (December 2017), Commonwealth Games in Australia (April 2018), Asian Games in Jakarta (August 2018) and World Cup (November-December 2018).

“The Asia Cup title was really important for us primarily because our last two tournaments — Hockey World League Semi Finals and Sultan Azlan Shah — had not gone well. We were unbeaten at the Asia Cup. Besides, winning it after 10 years was special too. The win has boosted our morale which augurs well for the team considering the Hockey World League Final is coming up in the next month,” the Jalandhar lad added.

Before that, they will have to work out the kinks which were apparent during the tournament in Bangladesh. Right after the finale, where India beat Malaysia 2-1, Marijne spoke of how the team needed to work on maintaining consistency.

“One of the things we need to improve upon, and even the coach said this a few times, is maintaining our structure. We lost structure at times at the Asia Cup. And we want to convert all our chances. In our final against Malaysia, we created too many chances but scored only twice. We also need to work on our defence and not concede so many penalty corners,” Manpreet said.

The Asia Cup may be in the bag, but the real test of the team’s new hockey style, new coach and new captain begins now.