Indian Hockey coah Paul Van Ass was sacked after he failed to report on time for the national team’s camp that began at the scenic Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in Shilaroo, Himachal Pradesh on Sunday.
According to media reports, temperamental Van Ass had a public spat with Hockey India president Narinder Batra after the quarter-final match against Malaysia at the World League semifinals. This might well be the reason for Van Ass’ decision not to turn up for the camp.
Just before he was sacked, a senior member of the national team said at the end of the day it is the players who suffer the most in the frequent change of coaches.
It (Change of coaches) definitely affects us. It affects our training, our performance, our preparation (for Rio Olympics). It takes time for players to build rapport with a coach. It takes time to understand and then adapt to a coach’s style. So, if the chief coach is changed frequently every other day it is bound to affect our performance. Under Terry Walsh we had trained for nearly one-and-half years. He got settled and got used to his style of hockey, our performance started to get better. We also qualified for the Olympics under Walsh but then he suddenly left (for some reasons). Then Van Ass came on board and we started training under him. It’s been hardly 4-5 months now there are talks that Van Ass’ is not coming and we are back to square again. The Olympics is just a year away and this sort of uncertainty is only going to hamper our preparation, the annonymous Indian Hockey star told PTI.
Incidentally, if and when that happens it will not be the first time that a foreign coach of the Indian men’s hockey team will leave the country on a sour note. Van Ass’s predecessors Jose Brasa, Michael Nobbs and Terry Walsh, all of whom were hired by SAI on the recommendations of HI at hefty salaries, left the country on an unceremonious note.