By K. Datta, IANS
New Delhi : Joaquim Carvalho, chief coach of the Indian hockey team, wants more corporate houses to chip in for the game.
Currently preparing the team for the crucial Olympic qualifiers in Santiago, Chile, in March, Carvalho said: “More and more of our corporate houses should come out to provide a boost to Indian hockey.”
He also appreciated the gesture by State Bank of India of presenting the national team with a cheque of Rs.10 million.
“The companies will do the national sport a world of good by creating infrastructure for it,” said Carvalho, who coached the Indian team to a resounding 7-2 victory over Korea in the Asia Cup final at Chennai in September.
Carvalho has no grudge against cricketers receiving so much attention and money. But hockey players also deserve adulation and rewards.
“Not hockey alone, but all sportspersons bringing laurels to the country,” he asserted. He appealed to state governments especially to come forward to give hockey players their due.
You can’t agree more with Carvalho. There is no Indian sports fan, cricketers included, who would not like to see the Indian hockey team do well again in the Olympics where it has won eight gold medals in the past. The last time it won an Olympic gold medal was in 1980. But the sad truth is that India has still to qualify for next year’s Beijing Olympics.
The Asia Cup victory under Carvalho was a promising sign, and he is preparing the team for the Olympic qualifier in Chile in March.
Training camp followed by a period of rest, training camp and rest again and so on till he takes the team out to Chile after monitoring the players’ performance in the forthcoming Premier League in Chandigarh.
Carvalho also has in mind a few internationals before the actual Chilean campaign. But of one thing he is clear. “Players will be selected only on the basis of performance,” he says, adding that “there is no place for malingerers or those who shirk hard work.”
Coming to the case of Sandeep Singh, the drag flick specialist who does not find a place in the Bangalore camp, Carvalho feels the young man needs to develop as a complete defence player.
Drag flicks are not everything. There is no point in fielding a player who manages a goal by a drag flick but is not sound on the whole in the defence and is prone to commit lapses which result in conceding goals. Discipline and a willingness to consistently work hard are other things Carvalho would like to see in his players. He is not for those “who rest for four days after two days of hard work.”
What does Carvalho have to say about Ric Charlesworth, the Australian women’s hockey team coach who will be arriving next month to take up his new job as technical expert to help the development of Indian hockey, whatever that means. “He was a good player,” says Carvalho who played against Charlesworth in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
“I believe he will act as an advisor to the Indian hockey administration.” Charlesworth may be free to advise, but Carvalho makes it very clear that all decisions about the coaching of the Indian team will rest in him (Carvalho). In other words, Carvalho would not like any interference or imposition.
In any case, Carvalho has his own advisers in M.M.Somaya and Mervyn Fernandis, both fellow Mumbaikars. And so far his brains trust has served him well.
(K.Datta is a veteran sports journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected])