Bottling her emotions, Janneke Schopman made a rather forthright statement after the Indian women’s hockey team’s loss to Japan on Friday that shattered her team’s hopes of qualifying for the Paris Olympics. The head coach believed her team, ranked sixth in the world, had the quality to be there. “So that is on me, because I think we should have been there,” she said.
Perhaps more so given their performance at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where the women’s hockey team cooked up one of the most feel-good, fourth-place tales for India at the Games. The excellent outing brought with it the promise of greater appetite from the team, which may have shown signs of development in terms of the style of play under Dutch coach Schopman but has evidently stagnated in results since.
Peformances in key tournaments have dipped (joint-9th in 2022 World Cup, bronze at 2022 Commonwealth Games, bronze at Asian Games last year), while the supply line of players in specialised roles appears to have dried up. In Ranchi, the 0-1 loss in the third-place playoff dashed hopes of featuring in a third straight Olympics.
Sjoerd Marijne, who was head coach at Tokyo before his then assistant coach Schopman took over, said he was most disappointed for the girls and the coach “because they worked hard just for this goal”.
“I had just hoped that what we achieved in the Olympics, they can proceed with it,” the Dutchman said over phone. “It’s really a pity that the team didn’t qualify. But now, the evaluation has to be precise. Use this time to be critical, but also constructive.
“From the team that I had, 5-6 girls aren’t there, and they had a lot of experience. In the last few years, Janneke had to renew the team. The young girls, I don’t think, have that experience to play these kind of matches. I don’t want to put it on the youngsters, because they did well. But our team in Tokyo was a little bit more experienced. And that made the difference.”
Schopman has had to oversee a transition phase but has also been inclined towards blooding in younger faces. The absence of experienced forward Vandana Katariya and midfielder Sushila Chanu (both injured) was felt at the FIH Women’s Olympic Qualifiers. Deep Grace Ekka’s absence is shrouded in mystery and Schopman has also made some big selection moves in phasing out star forward Rani Rampal and long-time dragflicker Gurjit Kaur.
“I can’t judge those decisions from the outside,” Marijne said. “Of course, having experience is important. But you also can’t keep playing with the same team. You have to renew and refresh.”
Somewhere in that renewal process, this team has been left poorer in terms of quality strikers and specialised dragflickers. India’s five matches in the qualifiers, and the Asian Games semi-final defeat to China, reflected that. The team had just four field goals across the five matches in Ranchi. When they did fashion creative chances from flashes of individual brilliance, they were far from clinical inside the circle.
More worrying is the dearth of genuine dragflickers to convert penalty corners (India had nine against Japan). Other than young Deepika — plucked out of the juniors last year and planted as the senior team’s primary dragflicker — and a few scarce back-up options, the flicking cupboard is bare.
“When you only have 1-2 specialists to take PCs, it’s a big challenge,” Marijne said. “You need to have more. It’s not easy, but you need to develop them. And that’s what Netherlands and Belgium did by getting in dragflick specialist coaches.
“PCs are among the main goal-scoring weapons in today’s hockey. And when we don’t score goals, PCs or field goals, how can the team win?” Dilip Tirkey, Hockey India president, said.
That also raises the question about the talent pool and quality of players coming into the system through the grassroots and juniors, especially in specialised roles.
“Teams with specialists are dominating world hockey. We will have to work on this. That has been our lesson from this tournament. We will have to plan a programme and work towards it for the next two years,” Tirkey, former India captain, said.
The road ahead, without the Olympics to aim at and with the next World Cup, CWG and Asian Games in 2026, will be critical. Some senior players of this team are on the last few legs of their careers while the contract of Schopman, whom the HI president has said can’t be blamed, runs until Paris.
Marijne felt the evaluation process must be quick, precise and decisive, keeping emotions aside and the 2028 Olympics in mind. The young players in the squad must be persisted with, he added, and given more matches and exposure to get better from this bitter experience.
The Dutchman reckoned India can use the model of Belgium — they did not qualify for Rio and Tokyo but have made it to Paris — to use the current step back for a future step forward.
“Belgium took that time to make up plans. The federation created a high-performance environment and got in various kinds of specialists in coaching roles,” he said.
“This is the time India can get one step ahead of the other countries. Because everyone else will be busy with the Olympics. You must already start planning for LA (2028 Los Angeles Games), and not delay that process.”