Roelant Oltmans sacked: Indian hockey needs foreign coach with local sensibilities to achieve success

It was 27 May, 1998.

The Indian women’s team had been beaten 4-2 by South Korea in the 1998 World Cup, an event where the men’s and women’s World Cup were held together. Col Balbir was the women’s coach while Vasudevan Bhaskaran was coaching the men’s team led by Dhanraj Pillay.

The colonel was walking alone and clearly in distress. The women’s team had lost their fifth consecutive match. “Let’s meet tomorrow and talk,” he said. “The Indian men’s team are playing Canada and we can watch it together,” Balbir said.

I had been watching the women’s matches along with the men’s. They had played well but the ruthlessness was missing. A fluent midfield wasn’t able to unsheathe their swords in time to cut and make the opponent bleed. In their defeats of 0-1 to England, 1-2 to Argentina, 1-2 to New Zealand India had shown the potential to finish the game on a draw, or even better, snatch a match-winner.

As coach, finishing fifth in a five-team pool meant that you would be fighting for 10th-12th position. That itself would give any coach a handful of ulcers and sleepless nights. Balbir’s gait was of a man who had aged considerably. In normal circumstances, he would be that streak of sunlight in a darkened room, his laughter like a ringing tone. Burdened by the results, knowing that the team was capable of winning matches, you couldn’t help but feel for Balbir.

On 28 May, India was playing on the second pitch against Canada. The Galgenwaard Stadium is the home of the Dutch football team FC Utrecht. I met the colonel at the media bar and we walked off to watch the match. It was afternoon. India was supposed to win. They had three points from a lone win against New Zealand. Hanging at the bottom of the pool, they needed a win to haul themselves into third spot; respectable after defeats against Germany, Netherlands and South Korea.

But when the match ended, Canada had won 4-1 and they celebrated with the zest of trophy winners. “I don’t think we have the coaches in India who can once again take India back into the top four,” said Balbir, completely stumping me. Balbir, I would again say, is not the type to say anything without thinking it through.

The five defeats as coach of the women’s team had taken its toll. And now after seeing the men’s team finish fifth in the pool, he was probably convinced that Indian hockey needed to take a serious look at its coaching talent.

But to have him utter the dirty word ‘foreigner’, which he did later, was like rewriting the hockey scriptures. “Even I know, we need to groom our retired players into good coaches,” explained Balbir. “But till that happens, it might be just too late.”

For a good hour, Col Balbir spoke about the gaps, the need for an advanced course in coaching. But time and again, he came back to the point that, India needs some professional inputs from title-winning coaches. After Netherlands won the World Cup beating Spain in the final 4-3 (Spain led 3-1), Balbir also pointed out that ‘India could at some stage try and get Roelant Oltmans. It was just a thought at that stage; the Olympic gold and World Cup-winning coach flying to India! Col Balbir himself had never thought that Oltmans would come to India in 2013, 15 years later.

Now, 19 years later, Roelant Oltmans has come and gone. Asked by Hockey India to relinquish command and make way for another coach. Possibly another foreigner. Probably an Indian.

The debate has yet again been ignited. Some coaches, mainly those who could never take India into the top six at the Olympics or the World Cup or even win a medal at the Champions Trophy, want an Indian to hold the reins of the national team.

And there are some who do believe that if the command is given to an Indian for at least four years, the results will follow. Rajinder Singh, who took India to the 2001 Junior World Championship title and was then rewarded by KPS Gill to become the senior men’s team coach, had the stripes.

Rajinder won the 2003 Asia Cup and took India to the fourth spot in the Champions Trophy. Under him, India played with passion and the forward line reverted to the free-flowing movement seen in the 1970 and 1980. But in some matches, the defensive four or three, whichever way Rajinder created his structure, let in crucial goals at key moments.

For instance, the match against Holland in the 2003 Champions Trophy. India led 3-1 with eight minutes left and lost 4-3; the Dutch match-winner coming in the last 30 odd seconds as the defenders scattered like a stone thrown among a kit of pigeons.

Structures were the main issue. Playing patterns were getting so tight and organised that even General Patton would have called them complex.

Germany’s Paul Lissek, who coached Malaysia during the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, organised defences building them on counter-attacks. In the semi-finals against India, the Malaysian team sat back defending with passion and fervour. India had nine goal scoring chances in the first half. They couldn’t put even one inside the Malaysian goal. The same pattern followed in the second half. Malaysia seized just one chance in the dying minutes and won the match 1-0.

Tactics and defensive patterns had arrived in Asia. Lissek in the lobby of the Concorde Hotel, Kuala Lumpur in 1999 during the Asia Cup said, “India needs a process. It’s not overnight. Your coaches cannot take hockey as a hobby. You have to leave your daily life and just be a coach.”

But in 1994 when Gill was elected, Cedric Dsouza was appointed national coach. There was an air of optimism. In 1989, he had led a young Mumbai team to the National Championship final in Gwalior where they had beaten Punjab in the final. Cedric, the fast-talking coach was the flavour. And in Sydney, 1994 during the World Cup, he ensured India finish fifth.

In terms of improvement, it was five spots above 10th where India had finished in the 1990 World Cup. Finally, it seemed that India may not look overseas for a coach. But performances slid after that. And even though D’Souza came back in 2002 for the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur, India was still out of the top six. Under Cedric, India played 24 matches, won five, drew nine and lost 10. The best place finish was the fifth in the 1994 World Cup and worst was the eighth at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Hopes rose again after India won the Asian Games in 1998 Bangkok. But MK Kaushik was sacked for getting the gold.

Bhaskaran took the team to the Sydney Olympic Games and a semi-final slipped away when all we needed was a win against a weak Poland. India drew 1-1. And the debate was reignited that India just didn’t have it in them to cut through the opposition.

But Korean coach Kim Sang Ryul, who had a NIS degree from Patiala, took Korea to the Olympic final. Indian coaches pointed to that saying that if he could, why can’t our coaches do it? The assessment was correct. Except that Kim slept five hours a day and worked more than the players. There was no tournament in the world that he wasn’t seen at. But at the bottom was a work culture he built looking at the strengths of the Korean players. And Korea gave him a free hand from 1990 till the Sydney Olympic Games — a run of 10 years.

India first experimented with a foreign coach when Gill appointed Germany’s Gerhard Rach in 2004. Till date, nobody knows how he slipped into the radar of the Indian Hockey Federation. Under him India finished fourth in the Champions Trophy and seventh at the Athens Olympic Games.

In 13 matches, he only won three, lost eight and drew two. Rajinder Singh Junior was appointed in 2005 and promptly India finished sixth in the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Joaquim Carvalho came in 2007 and India won the Asia Cup in Chennai. But at the Olympic Qualifying round in Chile, India lost to England and for the first time India was out of the Olympic Games. Panic set in. India knew that the way back was tough and no Indian coach could have handled that.

In came Spain’s Jose Brasa in 2010, a man who could create puzzles out of the structures he created in Indian hockey. The players loved it and he found success too when India won a silver in the Commonwealth Games, but then slipped to eighth in the 2010 World Cup.

Foreign or Indian, India was found wanting at the top level. And when India crashed to 12th spot in the 2012 London Olympics, most supporters and experts in India realised that a good foreign coach was essential.

Oltmans came in 2013 but as High Performance Director and after him came Terry Walsh, a legendary Australian forward. India finished ninth in the 2014 World Cup but for a lot of critics in Holland, India’s display was arresting. They lost two extremely close games against Belgium and England but Terry was getting the pulse of the team.

It all worked out when India won the gold at the 2014 Asian Games, but Terry was sacked right after that. Oltmans took over and took India to a bronze in the Hockey World League Finals and then the silver in the Champions Trophy. It was impressive, mainly because India had never got onto the podium except for a bronze in the 1982 Champions Trophy.

Astroturf was inducted in Hockey post-Montreal Olympics (1976).  Indian Hockey has been struggling since then. Here is the performance of all the coaches on turf. Results of India in eight tournaments viz Olympics(OG), World Cup(WC), Champions Trophy(CT),  Hockey World League (SF and Finals rounds-HWL),Commonwealth Games(CWG), Asian Games(AG), Asia Cup(AC), Asian Champions Trophy( ACT) has been considered.

With Oltmans leaving for Holland, where does Indian hockey go now? Whom should it turn to? Foreigner or Indian? Other than Harendra Singh, there is nobody on the horizon who can manage a team. Oltmans says, “To be honest, I don’t think India can manage without a foreigner. You need a total package and most Indian coaches are not up there with their knowledge levels. If you can groom Tushar Khandkar, maybe, you can have a good coach for the future.”

Oltmans also says the total structure counts. “You could open certain areas to foreigners but then one man needs to head the whole staff. It’s just not the coach alone who can deliver.” Speaking on whether he had lost his passion as he won an Olympic gold and a World Cup in 1996 and 1998, Oltmans was scathing in his reply. “I am more passionate now than ever before,” he said. “I have put in 110 percent. And all those who are saying that I am not result oriented are speaking a lot of bullshit.”

Just before the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil, the then USA coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, said, “We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet. Realistically, it is not possible.”

In the Indian scenario, especially in hockey, these are lines you cannot utter. Oltmans probably said in the committee meeting that India should send a different team to the 2018 Commonwealth Games as the Asian Games and the World Cup are after that. “And that we should accept that a higher ranking may not come,” he explains. “But the team cannot play three back-to-back top level tournaments with the same set of players.”

An Indian coach probably would have said, ‘let’s go for gold.’ Walsh after winning the Asian Games gold said in the press conference that ‘India will be lucky if they can enter the top six in Rio.’ He was promptly sacked under some pretext or the other.

Hockey India has advertised for the job of the Indian national coach and there would be a fair amount of applications coming in — some good, some average and probably one or two excellent resumes. But the tough call is who to pick — Indian or Foreigner. We seem to have come full circle without entering the top four at the Olympics or the World Cup. Yes, it no longer suffices that we win in Asia. There is a need to bring medals back home from the Olympics and the World Championships.

In India, success is subjective. For some beating Pakistan is success. For some reaching the quarter-final and playing a close game against the reigning Olympic Champion will do. For others, the loss is deep and hurtful when a team yet again fails to reach the semi-finals and the dream of winning gold evaporates. We last won the World Championship in 1975. We last won the Olympic Gold in 1980. Don’t even count the years.

Maybe, when India’s High Performance Director, David John and the rest sit down to choose the next Indian coach; they would like a combination — a foreigner with Indian sensibilities. Oltmans had an observation about India’s traffic. “It looks like it is chaotic. But it is structured.” Maybe, we need exactly that in Indian hockey; the chaos needs to be a ladder.

With Stats inputs from BG Joshi