Three years in the past, Harendra Singh made a life-changing resolution. The former India coach, one amongst a handful of licensed grasp coaches in world hockey and the one one from the nation, determined he had had sufficient of enjoying second fiddle to international appointees at house, refused to compromise on his calls for and moved to the USA.
As the chief coach of the USA males’s staff, Harendra readily agreed to assist the ladies’s staff in its quest for excellence. Its success on the current Olympic Qualifiers, the place it beat India earlier than finally qualifying for Paris, owed quite a bit to his inputs, each by way of planning and participant understanding (he was additionally the India ladies’s coach for a interval). Back within the nation for the FIH Pro League, Harendra spoke candidly to The Hindu on a variety of topics. Excerpts:
Figuring issues out: Harendra says all his sensible and theoretical information when teaching India was self-generated — he analysed why his groups succeeded or failed and labored on options to transform the failures to success. | Photo credit score: Getty Images
| Photo Credit:
Soccrates Images
Three years in skilled sport within the USA, how has the expertise been?
My expertise in India was hands-on. All my sensible and theoretical information right here was self-generated — why my groups succeeded or failed and find out how to convert the failures to success. Unfortunately, it started and ended with me. There is not any documentation of something in India.
There is at all times speak of doing it but on floor, I believe lower than 0.001 % work has been finished. We are solely relying on a participant’s abilities and pure aptitude for medals. Scientifically and in the usage of know-how and analysis, we’re far behind. I imagine we have now the potential to be within the prime 5 at any main occasion, together with the Olympics, but not with out the back-room work.
When I turn into coach right here, I’ve nothing to know what the earlier coach did. And after I go away, the subsequent coach received’t have any official documentation or information.
This has been my greatest studying expertise within the USA. There is correct documentation at each step, information is accessible and it’s a must to maintain including to it. I believe correct documentation is essential for any organisation to have a correct system and for that system to work effortlessly.
Let me give an instance. If I must find out about a selected participant, I’ve every little thing about him, over time, in entrance of me — what his velocity is, whether or not he’s extra damage inclined and wherein half, his physiology, what must be finished, how it’s to be finished, who will work on what side of the participant. I believe this can be a huge motive for the USA being on prime of the medals desk by way of golds at each Olympics.
And not simply on the prime stage on discipline; even on the grassroots, a coach there is not going to have to start out from zero. He will know the mindset of a participant, his issues in particular conditions, his social and monetary background, the sort of pupil he has been at college or college, his ambitions and what he hopes to attain via both sports activities or teachers. The use of science to know and enhance there’s approach forward.
How would you examine it to teaching in India?
In the usage of science we’re far behind though I imagine, from my expertise, that Hockey India and our gamers are nonetheless approach forward of all different Olympic sports activities and, in some areas, even the BCCI. But that’s restricted to the highest. Across the nation, gamers nonetheless don’t find out about biomechanics, physiology, periodisation (a cyclical methodology of planning and managing coaching via the 12 months divided into phases specializing in completely different targets), tempering or transition interval.
Which is why our gamers take time to adapt once they come into the nationwide set-up. It takes a minimum of a 12 months to get used to all of this and if he fails in that interval, he dangers being discarded. A participant is crucial individual for a staff to succeed and in the event you don’t focus on all this with him he can not carry out. You want to present him a particular deliverable and a pathway to achieve there.
How do you see the Indian staff’s growth lately and the highway forward?
I imagine this staff has given good outcomes between 2016 and the Tokyo Olympics. We are on prime in Asia and a minimum of for the subsequent 5 years, I don’t see any staff difficult it. Having mentioned that, top-level hockey is now restricted to India, Australia and 4 Euro groups — Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, England — with Argentina as an outlier. Against these, we have now quite a lot of work to do.
I really feel Craig [Fulton] is an efficient coach and is doing properly but the staff stays unpredictable. Who makes what resolution on the sector at what second continues to be not sure, there’s a fragility in thoughts that mirrors on discipline. When they keep their construction, they’re good and unbeatable. Talent-wise, there’s depth for now. But I’m sceptical in regards to the future teams for the ’28, ’32, ’36 Olympics, I can not see these gamers in the mean time.
What do you’re feeling is the answer?
The answer shouldn’t be with the nationwide staff, it is advisable discover it on the home stage with Indian coaches taking trendy studying to the grassroots. Sadly, only some in India take any curiosity and even they don’t seem to be bothered about holistic studying. Skill is only one half, there are different topics — diet, biomechanics, physiology, psychological well being, damage prevention, energy & conditioning — I don’t suppose there’s a single coach in India who is prepared or in a position to focus on these subjects. Even if somebody does, it’s in a particular context. A participant coming with these handicaps into the nationwide camp is sort of a child thrown into the ocean with out coaching requested to avoid wasting himself.
I believe it’s time for the federal government, the federation and the IOA to be on a single platform and use it to supply services and create a pathway for gamers and coaches. The IOA must be much more concerned, there must be change of concepts. If we’re bidding for the 2036 Olympics, that is the best time to usher in radical adjustments. There is quite a lot of speak and no execution.
Germany coach Valentin Altenburg spoke about legacy inspiring confidence. We have a hockey legacy greater than anybody else but that hasn’t translated into outcomes.
Altenburg has been a part of a legacy-creating staff at Rio so he is aware of what he’s saying. But I imagine any staff can create a legacy if you work on three issues — passing, receiving and tackling. If these are good in your gamers, the arrogance stage routinely goes up. If you’re 1-0 down with minutes to go but assured in these areas, you recognize there will likely be a second when one good go will flip right into a purpose. When that second doesn’t come, it turns into chaos. The drawback is, we don’t make issues occur, we look ahead to issues to occur.
We discuss legacy but it’s helpful if you be taught from the previous. I recommend ‘Legacy’ by James Kerr on the NZ rugby staff to grasp the precise concept of legacy. Our eight golds were great but who saw them occur? If right now I’ve to make use of that to show the Indian staff, how do I clarify or present them virtually? Again, no information, no video to make them imagine and proceed the legacy.
Professional fulfilment: Harendra says he regrets not taking cost of the Indian ladies’s staff earlier. ‘The satisfaction a coach feels in actually developing players,’ he says, ‘is with the women’s staff’. | Photo credit score: Getty Images
If we speak in regards to the ladies’s staff, is it disappointing to see them not qualify for the Olympics and is there a battle when the USA performs India?
Of course you’re feeling unhealthy when your nation’s staff, the place you will have labored within the sport for 25 years, doesn’t qualify. But I additionally felt good for the USA. They had missed out on Tokyo after shedding to India right here and I might see there was a need to alter that. Credit to the federation and specifically coach David Passmore to organize the staff. I do know for a incontrovertible fact that the second the qualifiers were determined, your complete USA Hockey received collectively to make it attainable. The goal right here is 2028 in LA, Paris is a preparatory cease. But I nonetheless suppose the Indian ladies’s staff deserved to be within the Olympics and has a greater probability of profitable medals in comparison with males.
When I took cost of the ladies’s staff, I had just one remorse — coming in so late. All credit score to educate Baldev Singh who pestered me for nearly 5 years but I didn’t take him critically. But after I took cost, I realised the satisfaction a coach feels by way of really creating gamers is with the ladies’s staff. If you demand one thing, they ship. We have the expertise but we have to get it clicking on the proper time and place. In velocity we’re stage with the highest groups, energy is much less sure but that’s made up for in agility. Our ladies are emotional but we have to make it their energy, not weak spot.
Can you checklist a number of particular causes for the ladies’s staff’s failure?
One, coaches have ignored the drag-flick and proceed to take action. If the boys are right now among the many prime groups, a giant motive is Harmanpreet and there’s a huge group as back-up. Unless that occurs in ladies, it is going to be troublesome to show losses into wins. Two, the lack to be current within the second contained in the attacking 25-yard circle and permitting an excessive amount of area to the opponents inside that zone defensively is a giant concern.
Finally, can we see you again in India as a coach?
Coaches are professionals, no doorways are ever completely closed or opened for them. It all is determined by demand and provide from each ends. For now, I’m very pleased working with USA [Field] Hockey and its board members, the High Performance programme, I’m lucky to be working with them underneath their imaginative and prescient. I don’t know if I’ve been profitable in giving one thing but I do know there was a giant chunk lacking from my teaching life and right here I’ve received quite a bit — sufficient for the FIH to incorporate me within the panel of the world’s prime seven coaches. So it’s good.
