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The Sultan Azlan Shah Cup will be the year’s first international assignment for the Indian senior men’s hockey team and it will also be the first real test for the newly installed head coach Paul van Ass, who took charge two weeks ago. The new coach has had barely a couple of weeks’ time to spend with the boys and will probably need some more time to settle down in his new job. In international hockey of course, it is all about delivering without excuses.
Expectations from the Indian hockey fans are always sky-high and Van Ass will know well that a poor showing in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup would create an impression of the national team going a few steps backwards after having made rapid strides last year.
Of course, Van Ass has no shortage of credibility – he coached the Netherlands men’s hockey team to a silver medal finish in the 2012 London Olympics as well as in the 2014 World Cup in Hague. The Dutchman of course had to swallow a bitter pill in what turned out to be his last game as Dutch coach with the Orange brigade being handed a 1-6 thrashing by Australia in the 2014 World Cup final.
Tough oppositions in Sultan Azlan Shah Cup
This country’s newest coach is fully aware that the current crop of national players have been styled in the Australian school of hockey by former coaches Michael Nobbs and Terry Walsh, and tinkering with it too much by infusing the European style of hockey may not be a good idea immediately.
Given the fact that India will have to counter the likes of world champions Australia, world number seven New Zealand and world number eight Korea besides hosts Malaysia, who have come up in leaps and bounds, and Canada, surely it won’t be a stroll on the pitch for India.
The 2015 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup appears more competitive than it has been in recent years. And the Paul Van Ass-coached Indians must be at their best if they are to kick off 2015 on a title-winning note.
