Indian men’s hockey team chief coach Roelant Oltmans is happy for the new format of having quarterfinals in place of direct semifinals in the upcoming Rio Olympics. He thinks it is not only beneficial for India but all small teams.
“If you have teams like Argentina, Germany, and Holland in your group, it becomes that difficult to end up being the top two teams in your group. It is not impossible to qualify, but now if you finish in top four, you have a chance to play in the quarterfinals,” Oltmans told.
“This format will give India and every other team including, Canada a feel that they have a greater chance of making it to the quarterfinals,” he said.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has introduced a new competition format in this year’s Olympics. As per the new format, 12 teams have been divided into two pools of six with each team initially playing round-robin games within their pool. Following the completion of the round-robin games, the top four teams from each pool will advance to the quarterfinals.
Hockey India has named senior goalkeeper PR Sreejesh as the captain of the national team for the Rio Olympics in place of long-standing skipper Sardar Singh.
Oltmans was asked about the logic behind the decision. He replied, “I can assure you the group dynamics are good or may be even better under actual circumstances. Sardar can now completely focus on his game, and let rest of the players shoulder more responsibility. This exactly was the aim when we discussed it replacing Sardar with Sreejesh.”
“Sardar along with (vice-captain) SV Sunil, VR Raghunath Manpreet Singh and Sreejesh forms a group of captain. I believe it is a positive endeavor,” Oltmans added.
The 16-member Indian team has a mixture of youth and experience. It consists of seven players who played in the 2012 London Olympics while nine new faces were inducted.
Asked whether the players who were part of the London Olympics squad were sharing their experience with the new faces, the coach said: “They have experience but the problem is their experience is not positive. They had played 2012 Olympics and unfortunately, that was not the best Olympics for India. So, they bring quite negative thoughts.”
To overcome the problem, Oltmans said he shares his successful Olympics experiences with the youngsters. “I have a very good and positive experience of playing in the Olympics and therefore I share my experience, discuss it and talk about it to prepare the youngsters as good as possible,” he said.