About 4 years in the past, when Soord Marin, the then coach of the Indian males’s hockey staff, picked a teenage participant to characterize India on the Commonwealth Games, he was satisfied {that a} new star had been found. However, when the participant flopped within the Gold Coast, Marin was “deeply mystified”. At first he thought it was due to the stress of enjoying in an enormous match. But later, he says, he discovered that captain Manpreet Singh had reportedly informed the participant to “stop playing so well”.
The Dutchman, who coached the lads’s staff earlier than ending a historic fourth on the Olympics final 12 months, made this declare in his soon-to-be-released e book Will Power. While the 200-page memoir is basically based mostly on the transformation of the ladies’s staff, Marijne has additionally opened up about her troublesome nine-month stint with the lads, which ended after a poor exhibiting on the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
“A few weeks later, at a post-Games meeting, I learned from High Performance Director David John that this player had claimed that Manpreet had told him to stop playing so well because his friends could not attend. Team. I don’t know if Manpreet jokingly said that or not, but it made me so furious,” wrote Marijne, who made Singh India’s captain quickly after turning into coach.
Speaking to The Indian Express from Den Bosch within the Netherlands, Marin mentioned that his intention was “not to harm anyone, but to let people know what situation you are dealing with as a coach and what goes on behind the scenes”. It occurs”.
“That (incident) was very difficult because I had faith in Manpreet and I never thought he would do it,” he mentioned on Friday. “The reason I put it in the book is not personal, but to get people to see how it works in a team and how important a good culture is. It’s an example of how it has worked for me and the team.” Didn’t work and I hope others can study from it.”
When contacted, Singh declined to remark.
Marijne shouldn’t be the primary coach to make such allegations towards the lads’s staff. After the 2012 Olympics, former coach Michael Nobbs, in his official report back to Hockey India, alleged {that a} group of gamers from Punjab have been focusing extra on themselves than on the staff, and claimed that “one player suffered an injury”. The plan was to ship” so {that a} standby might be a part of the primary staff. This was cited by Nobbs as a significant motive for India’s worst ever efficiency within the Olympics. The staff completed final among the many 12 groups in London.
Marijne mentioned she and Singh buried the hat-trick a number of months after the incident and the India captain, underneath whom the staff received a bronze medal on the Tokyo Olympics, additionally helped with the coaching of girls gamers forward of the Games.
Writing the e book was a “lockdown project” for Marijne, who spent practically 5 years in India. Out of behavior, he made a every day notice of each incident throughout his time in India. The purpose, he mentioned, was largely to “remember things”. However, in March 2020, when the pandemic began, he determined to construction the tough notes and convert them right into a e book.
“The main reason I wrote this book was to share the process that the team and me, as a coach, have had with all the ups and downs. It has been a journey with a lot of disappointments, mentally tough, with a beautiful ending, but no one knows how it happened,” he mentioned.
The Indian girls’s hockey staff was ranked thirteenth on this planet when Marin took over after a disastrous efficiency on the Rio Olympics in February 2017 the place they did not win a single match. “The players weren’t happy with themselves, they had low confidence, and the team dynamics weren’t that great. That’s how we started,” he mentioned.
There have been many obstacles alongside the way in which, however Marijne mentioned one of many greatest challenges was her perspective in direction of girls’s hockey. “They weren’t essential. It’s all in regards to the males.
“Our Olympic qualifiers (in October-November 2019) were the first time in 10 years that I believe Indian women played at home. His families never saw him play live. If you organize tournaments, you are guaranteed participation and you play with better teams, which means you can get points to move up the rankings. Which helps to grow. Sports Authority of India and Hockey India were supportive but these were the differences that I experienced,” Marijne mentioned.
Nevertheless, the staff defied the chances to upset Australia within the quarter-finals on the Tokyo Games and got here near a podium end, dropping narrowly to Britain within the bronze medal playoffs. This was Marin’s final match because the staff’s cost.
“In four-and-a-half years, we have had more disappointment than celebration,” he mentioned. “I wanted to bring girls into the limelight because that is what they deserve after all the sacrifices. They are heroes,” he mentioned.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
