Sardar Singh has a imaginative and prescient, like he’s at all times had, of how hockey needs to be performed. “Pretend physique dodge,” begins the previous grasp of feints, “lengthy passes, robust fundamentals, forwards with higher tackling talents than even the defenders and defenders with higher abilities than forwards”. Complete hockey, if you’ll.
In his prime, the previous India captain was all the above and extra. Now a coach, Sardar needs the gamers he’ll coach to embrace his model of hockey.
He isn’t the one retired India star to pivot to teaching. His London Olympics teammates Tushar Khandker and Shivendra Singh have been in Group India’s assist employees for some time and the recently-retired PR Sreejesh was again within the dugout as coach of the junior India staff inside a month or so after his final worldwide outing. Over on the ladies’s aspect, the legendary Rani Rampal didn’t waste time both in transferring to a training position.
At completely different phases of their teaching careers, their paths crossed over the past month within the Hockey India League.
The primary rendition of the competitors reworked the Indian gamers who had been uncovered to the very best practices of world hockey, enabling them to rise from being also-rans to back-to-back Olympic medallists.
Sardar Singh is the mentor of Soorma Hockey Membership, coaches by Dutchman Jeroen Baart (R) (Credit score: Soorma Hockey Membership/ Instagram)
Revived after a seven-year hiatus, can the HIL have the same transformational affect on the Indian teaching system? There are the celebrities on one aspect, hoping for a clean transition into teaching; on the opposite finish of the spectrum are coaches, like Siddharth Pandey, who’ve toiled on the home circuit for years.
Within the ongoing season, each staff has a international head coach with an Indian understudy. Sardar is the mentor of Dutchman Jeroen Baart-coached Soorma the place Arjun Halappa is the technical director; Sreejesh is the director of hockey at former India coach Graham Reid’s Delhi SG Pipers; Siddharth Pandey is the staff director of Hyderabad Toofans, coached by one other Dutchman, Pasha Gademan; Deepak Thakur is an assistant to Colin Batch on the Shrachi Bengal Tigers whereas on the ladies’s aspect, Khandker is the assistant coach of Delhi SG Pipers, coached by Dave Smolenaars.
“Proper now, the HIL is a superb platform for Indian coaches,” says Sardar. And, at present, the one platform.
Over the past 15 years or so, India has spent greater than Rs 10 crore, a conservative estimate, on international coaches. Every one, of their manner, took India a step nearer to the Olympic podium, a feat lastly achieved underneath Reid and repeated by Fulton’s India. However questions have at all times been floated about how sustainable is that this mannequin to import coaches on the high of the pyramid.
It’s led to a scenario the place the gamers individually have grown into world-class abilities. However misplaced someplace on this India story is the plight of coaches. Harendra Singh, now with the ladies’s staff, is an outlier who has remained a continuing all this whereas.
Now, the bunch of gamers who’ve performed a job in India’s resurgence wish to make sure the next-gen doesn’t should undergo like they did.
For Sardar, the teaching journey can also be, at some stage, born out of playing-career regrets. “It was my want to win an Olympic or World Cup medal. However that couldn’t occur. Now, at the very least I can attempt to produce gamers who can lead India that far,” says Sardar, additionally the coach of India’s sub-junior staff.
Sardar doesn’t instantly harbour the ambitions of teaching the senior staff. He needs to spend extra time with juniors, train them the talents he possessed and hope it’ll make them match sufficient to outlive — and thrive — in Indian hockey.
”Throughout my time, coaches used to vary typically, gamers was once shuffled round, and my place on the sphere stored altering. Underneath Brasa, I performed as a free man, my greatest place. Then got here Nobbs and he put me in midfield and the ahead line in the course of the Olympics… The scenario again then wasn’t in our fingers. However at the very least I can put together the gamers to be prepared for all conditions,” he says.
Sardar needs to return to the Netherlands, the place he performed membership hockey, and observe the youth teaching techniques of the Olympic champions. Then, the plan is to go on these learnings, blended along with his concept of hockey, to gamers aged underneath 15 in India. Already, he’s influenced the profession of Rajinder Singh, who just lately made his India debut. Throughout the pandemic, Sardar skilled the younger centre-half, who hails from the identical village.
“I wish to work with girls and boys aged underneath 12, 13 and 14; train them the fundamentals and form their careers. When these youngsters progress to the junior staff, then seniors, I’ll take delight in the truth that I performed a job of their improvement,” says Sardar.
For Sardar — and different former India internationals like him — the transition from taking part in to teaching has been clean. That hasn’t been the case for different coaches in India, particularly those that haven’t performed for the nationwide staff.
Like Pandey. An Worldwide Hockey Federation Stage 3 licensed coach, Pandey has been the voice of Indian hockey along with his commentary stints throughout massive tournaments. For years, although, he’s additionally spent numerous hours on the turf recognizing younger gamers and honing their abilities.
For him — and others like him — the HIL has develop into the one platform to indicate what they’re manufactured from, provided that the home competitions are not taken as severely.
”What the sooner editions of HIL did was, India was exterior the highest 10 and our gamers weren’t getting high-level, high-quality matches. That hole was plugged in by the HIL. Guys like (ahead) Mandeep (Singh) who had been on the fringes acquired these 10-15 matches which had been of worldwide stage.
“It’s the identical funda that works for coaches like me, who’re on the fringes of Indian hockey. We aren’t part of the nationwide staff set-up so the place are we going to go if not the HIL to get at the very least 10-15 international-level video games to check ourselves tactically, psychologically, our planning, organisation, long-term considering…?” Pandey says.
Sardar and Pandey each agree that underneath international coaches, they’re uncovered to finer nuances of teaching which is in any other case lacking within the Indian ecosystem. On the identical time, Pandey factors to the worth Indian coaches convey to the desk by their data of the gamers.
He cites the instance of Hyderabad’s assistant coach Sanjay Bir, who’s from RCF Kapurthala and the coach of the Railway Sports activities Promotion Board. “He is part of the material of home hockey and may inform you how match participant X is or how participant Y performs precisely. That’s the place the experience of Indian coaches is available in,” Pandey says.
”My intention this season was to have at the very least two Indian assistants. Sadly, I might solely get one however I can guarantee you it’ll be two subsequent season as a result of I do know what it takes for somebody to get this chance,” Pandey says.
He provides: “That is a tremendous alternative for us to carve out an area for Indian coaches, staff administrators, assistant coaches, goal-keeping coaches, drag-flick specialists… as a result of if not right here, then the place?”