Indian Hockey golden time!
Go back in the era of 1970’s when Indian Hockey was considered as by far the best in world. But with the passing time, there have been a lot of ups and down. The question arises, what is the situation now? To answer this question, we will go through certain statistics. Till date, there have been 12 Hockey World Cups and India along with Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Pakistan are the only nations who have qualified for all the 12 World Cups. But in the present scenario, Indian team is still waiting to get qualified for the World Cups. They can only play in the World Cup only in a condition i.e., if either of Australia or New Zealand wins the Oceania Cup.
Now, let us see the journey of Indian Hockey in Olympics. In Hockey, India has won 8 gold medals but this was too back in period of 1928 to 1980. The last time India got any medal in Olympics was in 1980. After this, most of the times, Indian Hockey team is not able to qualify for the Olympics. I think these stats are enough to answer my question. Yes, the situation of Indian hockey is not as good as it is used to be, but for now the things are getting back on track.
The next question that comes in the present scenario is the current form of the Indian Hockey players. For this, only stat is enough to explain this. By coming second in Asia Cup describes this. They are playing way above their potentials. There have been a lot of positives from this Asia Cup. At times you tend to learn more when you lose than when you win. The players are in sublime form. They have scored plenty number of goals in the Asia Cup. India Hockey has finally got two defenders and if they are trained and groomed well, they can easily serve for a long period of time. The Goal – Keeping was of top quality during the Asia Cup. Indian players are getting back on track after a lot of problems that they have undergone during past few years. The performance of team has been at his best from past many years.
There have been a lot of management issues with the Indian Hockey team which many a times hamper the performance of the players. The biggest controversy that is going on in the present scenario is that “Foreign Coaches are getting paid but at the time, Indian Coaches are doing the job for free”. Many great players have also stated that Indian players don’t need any foreign coach but the fact is that Indian team has started to perform well and that too after a long period of time and their coach can be the prime reason for this.
