India loses to Malaysia-Brasa may get sacked soon

I write this blog with extreme difficulty. It's been a pathetic feeling since India lost to Malaysia.

Over the lunch on the semi-final day, a colleague asked me, "Will it be a tuft one for India?".
I replied, "India may sail through but it will not be so simple. Malaysia is an upcoming team. However, the final against Korea will surely be tuft nut to crack". I didn't know it the unimaginable is about to happen.

As I switched on the television, it showed the Korea v Pakistan was into Penalty Strokes. Few minutes later, Pakistan emerged victorious. I wondered, whenever there are 2 favorites for any final and one of them go out, it is usually followed by the second one, too. The match started in just a bit and I didn't spend too much time on thinking about it.

Indians were struggling right from the word 'go'. Malaysian strategy was simple. Strict defensive and only counter-attacks. They made it so difficult for Indians to penetrate the circle that it became a boring game. Mostly the ball just travelling all with over the field with very little gush of energy in the game.
India couldn't penetrate and Malaysia didn't attack on their own. Usual game - Defend, steal the ball, counter-attack and then come back again to defense - went on till Malaysia succeeded in their counter-attack to go up 1-0 in the 32nd minute. Yet again, there was no one to blame but Indian defense. Malaysians were too fast for them.

India pumped in quite a bit of energy after this. Danish Mujtaba got a PC for India. India grabbed this opportunity with both hands. They leveled the score 1-1, thanks to Sandeep Singh's accurate drag flick. Indian players must have had a hard time at the lemon break because the game till now was anything but convincing.

India took an early lead in the 2nd half as Tushar Khandkar scored in the 38th minute but Indian happiness didn't last for long as Malaysia got a PC in the 48th minute. This goal by Malaysia was class apart more for the fact that Malaysians had the confidence of taking an indirect PC. A quick back pass to the pusher and he just had to deflect it. Indian fans could only bite their nails seeing the impertinence of the Malaysians.

Indians had became very aggressive and when they got the next PC in the 54th minutes, Dhananjay Mahadik took the drag flick. His flick was easily stopped by the Malaysian Goalkeeper Subramanian but the ball remained there in front of him. Rajpal hounded on that opportunity and put India again into the lead. The scoreline read 3-2.

With 3 minutes to spare, Malaysia got a PC which they converted and this was the most paragraph of Indian demise story. Scores leveled 3-3, Indians tried as harder. They got an important Penalty Corner but Sandeep Singh was out because of injury. India threw away this chance, thanks to Dhananjay Mahadik, who failed to even make a proper contact to pump in some acceleration into that flick.

Full time and when the score line read 3-3, Malaysians had won half the battle. They thrived on their confidence and within 6minutes they sealed India's fate by scoring on a PC.
Indian performance was on the decline right from the word 'go'. With lesser mistakes against Pakistan, India had started showing signs of poor performers against Japan. Today was just another episode in the declining performance.

Malaysia made a very well deserving entry into the semi-finals of Guangzhou Asian Games 2010. Who knows what they are gonna do to Pakistan in the finals. As the Malaysian coach, Stephen van Huizen, said, "We started as underdogs and we still are underdogs in the finals."

India, now has to find their way to the London Olympics 2010 via some qualifiers in early 2012.
Another sad portion for India is that their loss comes at a time, when coach Jose Brasa's fate was loosely hanging on India's Asian Games performance. India out in the semi-finals is sure-shot disappointment for millions of Indian Hockey fans. The officials were anyway keen on not renewing Brasa's contract with Indian Hockey. No matter how much Indian Hockey has evolved, they have a reason, which they can easily justify, to execute their plans and start off with the saga of non-contract coaches, yet again.

The interesting portion is, as Indian Hockey has evolved, so has happened to Malaysia and Pakistan as well. Even though there is huge improvement in the way Indians have played in the recent tournaments under their Spanish coach, you have to count the fact that Pakistan has a Dutch coach and Malaysia has a American coach. It's all about technology, strategy and innovation.

If at all, India thinks of replacing their coach, it should be another foreign coach and not someone who is dear to the officials. I hope we take a conscious and a calculated decision.

Ind v Jap: Indians struggle against a defensive Japan

It was a very different day from yesterday at the last Pool B match between India v Japan.

India must be very relieved at the full time hooter because Japan was hell bent upon leveling the scores. Thankfully, the score line read 3-2 in India’s favor.

India played with a strategy of long passes. To those passes, either there were no takers, or there were takers who couldn’t trap it cleanly or the takers couldn’t match up to the pace of the hit.

Even when India had leveled Japan's 21st goal in the game minutes before half time, it remained a puzzle at the lemon break if at all India will be able to pull off this one or not. India did come back with some promise when they converted the PC in the 38th minute. The score line was further enhanced to 3-1 in the 62nd minute via a penalty corner conversion by Sandeep Singh. However, Japan was back with a bang as they scored a field goal in the next minute making the score board read 3-2. This remained the final score.

Today, Indians could walk off from the pitch with their heads high but there are many lessons to be learnt from today’s game. First and foremost being defense. Even though defense has shown a lot of improvement but in every game, the goals that India concedes are only because of some stupid lapse in man to man marking. Sardara Singh – extremely vigilant at other times - was just a step behind the Japanese player when he deflected an incoming hit from the right sideline. Chetri couldn't move an inch at this time.

Next goal by Japanese was when all players were fighting for the ball in the right side of the D and a loner Japanese, standing at the top of the D, got the ball and hit the ball above the heads of an Indian and Bharat Chetri.

Both times, it was Hiroki Sakamoto for Japan.

On the other hand, Japanese did a wonderful work with man to man marking and the details of the result are just a proof of it: 2 goals from PC and 1 Field Goal (PC by Sandeep Singh and FG by Rajpal). The Field Goal was sheer class of Shivendra Singh and if you leave aside that, Japan never gave India any space inside their circle.

Another area of concern for India is their lack of strategy.  India has changed many aspects in their basic style of play – no solo games, thinking while passing, no wild hits, no stupid clearances, quick movement on counter attacks – but today’s game needed more than that, i.e. an effective strategy to outplay the opponents. Japan played a defensive games relying quite a bit on counter attacks. Mind you, they were almost successful in that. They could rotate the ball well, retained the ball for long durations whenever they got it, gave shockers to Indians for their mistakes and were effective in controlling the pace of the game.

If India won today, it was primarily due to 2 reasons: discipline in opponent’s circle and a few brilliant saves by Chetri. They worked for their penalty corners, kept checking where their partners are and attempted to give accurate passes. Shivendra Singh’s precise pass - between the legs, with his back facing the post and 2 Japanese defenders almost over him - to Rajpal who scored the 1^st goal just exemplifies this. You can only compare his stick work only with that of Rehan Butt in yesterday’s game.

One of the highlight of the game was Sandeep Singh, not only because of his perfect, on-target, drag flicks but the way he has worked on his defensive skills. Taking the opponents head on, he thwarted quite a few attacks all by himself. Indian defense certainly looks much better whenever Sandeep and Sardara are on the turf together.

India’s worries almost remain the same: At times, Rajpal Singh fails to release the ball and thereby throws away some good chances. Even further it is Dhananjay Mahadik. Whether it is because of pressure or his poor tackling skills but a determined sprinter Mahadik somehow, fails to trap the ball. Even when he does, he leaves it loose. That gave Japanese numerous chances which they couldn’t capitalize on.

There are some happy take backs for India, too. There were times, when Indians held on to the ball for that fraction of a second and passed the ball; some times to the right with reverse stick, at times left and many other times, behind between their legs. That fraction second thought makes this trick possible. Moreover, Brasa’s hammer has gone really hard on players like Shivendra, Tushar, Sarvanjit, Rajpal who have finally blossomed and are at their ever best rallying around the field. If you see Rajpal sprinting along with an attacker from the opponent’s quarter to India’s quarter you are surely give away your heart to him. Similarly, Vikram Pillay’s ground coverage and Arjun Halappa’s intelligence is a visual treat and keeps making you ask for more.

It was a closely contested game and it could have gone any way.  All in all, not the greatest of matches played by India but there is much hope from them in the semis lined up with Malaysia.