Time for first impression

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 1

The Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, starting from April 5, will be India's first international assignment of the year after the Champions Trophy. It will also be the first test for the newly-appointed head coach, Paul Van Ass, who took charge of the senior men’s team two weeks ago.

The Dutchman has had barely a couple of weeks' time to settle down in his new job. He would probably have liked to spend some more time with the boys before embarking on his first international assignment.

Paul knows the Indian sports administrators and fans are overtly demanding and expect instant results. The new coach would be under some pressure to deliver in his very first assignment for he has taken charge of the team that has been on the ascendency for some time now; they logged pretty good results under Terry Walsh, the man he has replaced. So, the expectations from the team and him too would be high.

Given that India will have to counter the likes of world champions Australia, world No.7 New Zealand and world No.8 Korea besides hosts Malaysia and Canada, the competition is certainly going to be pretty stiff. However, a title triumph will go a long way in earning him the respect and admiration of the players and the fans.

“There are some teams who are better ranked than us and some lower ranked. So, it’s a good balance. The Indian team is well prepared. We will put pressure on the opponents in each match and play all matches with the same intensity," Paul said.

"It's important to take one game at a time. For me, the most important is to see what we have learnt and then use it. To be honest, you can’t set targets. We want to win every tournament but, realistically, I am more interested in the process," he added.

One thing which could work in his favour is that he already has a 'process' in place, thanks to Walsh. India has already qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics on the back of its gold medal-winning performance at the Incheon Asian Games and the team wears a settled look.

From the look of it, Paul is unlikely to make major changes in the way the team has been playing over the last few years. At most, one could expect the Dutchman to just ‘fine-tune’ the process that is in place over the last few months.

"The aim is not to make major changes but to adapt according to the new system. The focus is on the improvement of technical skills of players. Players are in good shape and working hard. I am working on the 60 minutes that each player needs to spend on the pitch during the match. Suppose, a player keeps the ball for two minutes in a match, I am working on what does he do in the remaining 58 minutes. Besides, there are a few other things we are working on,” he said.

Paul is aware that having played under the Australian coaches, the current team is more use to Australian school of hockey; hence it wouldn’t be a good idea to expose them to too much of European style. The coach said he would try to mix the two styles, and use a bit of Asian style too. Over the last 12 months, India have improved their defence, there’s more structure to the way the team plays, and are more effective on counterattacks.

"There will not be much change in the style of play. I like the way Indians play hockey, the give-and-go style which is always nice and fantastic to watch. Only, in this process, they sometime lose the ball, and it becomes dangerous then. So this is what I want to do: we want to see that attacking play but also have that counter control so that we don’t end up with zero points despite playing fantastic hockey," he said.