BHUBANESWAR: Confidence is flowing through the veins of this Indian side. That much was evident during Harendra Singh’s post-match press conference after a thumping 5-1 win over Canada on Saturday. He announced that India’s ambition was to run up a big score.
“We wanted to win 6-0,” he said. “Doesn’t matter (…) 5-1 isn’t too far off from that mark.” Diplomacy? What’s that?
It’s been one of the broad trends of the Indian team over the last few weeks. For a team whose mental fragility has been well documented, Harendra & Co. have taken it upon themselves to talk them up at every available opportunity. Here was another example of India’s coach bigging up his players.
“We wanted to remove him (PR Sreejesh was substituted off to bring on a kicking back for the last three minutes against Canada) for a kicker with five minutes to go irrespective of the score line. I actually forgot to remove him then so the move only happened with three minutes remaining.”
Think about that for a second. Here was the coach admitting that he would have removed his last line of defence even if the match wasn’t secure in a must-win encounter. This could be misconstrued as extreme hubris but it’s also refreshing for a coach to spread the message of positivity in such a way.
Also, do not forget that Roelant Oltmans was sacked from his position in 2017 for ‘a lack of ambition’.
And this clarion call is reaching the players, one only needs to look at the likes of Lalit Upadhyay and Akashdeep Singh.
In the past, these two players — part of a wider supporting cast — have often been let down by their inconsistency and lack of discipline. In fact, both of those players have been dropped this year because of their tendency to frustrate the team management. The last two weeks has seen a departure from the norm. They seem to be relishing the added responsibility placed on them.
When Akashdeep was asked to play the role of linksman against the Rainbow Nation, he didn’t shirk his duties. He hadn’t essayed that role many times in the past but he wanted to repay the trust Harendra and the management had placed on him. The same applies to Upadhyay, who has never been able to cement his place in the squad because of his penchant for trying too many things without conviction.
Against Canada, the hard-working 25-year-old came into his own with two goals while playing in both midfield as well as a forward. Upadhyay, like Akashdeep, shifted to an unnatural position and came out on top.
“We knew Manpreet Singh was having a sore throat so we couldn’t use him for the entire match,” Harendra said.
“So, we had one less midfielder. That’s why Lalit’s role changed. I pulled him back a little bit.”
This isn’t to say Akashdeep and Upadhyay are the only ones to have benefited from Harendra’s man-management skills. Even the likes of Simranjeet Singh, who scored two in the opening match, and Amit Rohidas, the local boy who scored the fourth goal against the Red Caribou, have grown over the last two weeks.
It was again telling to listen to Harendra, who had this to say when asked to talk about his contribution to the side.
“There are 18 Rohidas’ in this team,” he said.
It may have been a cheap win but that’s exactly the kind of motivational techniques the coach has used in the past to get a reaction from his players. How the former women’s coach inspired the team to the 2016 Junior World Cup is a case in point. A day or two after he met all the probables for the first time, Harendra created a WhatsApp group titled ‘Mission: 2016’.
There wasn’t lots of interaction but everyday he would post motivational quotes in the group, asking his charges to forget about the past and focus only on the future. Some of those quotes may have been cheesy but it is working.
Upadhyay touched on it. “He (Harendra) knows each and every player and how to use them. He wants us to play fearlessly.”
Giving his wards the freedom to play fearlessly has also translated a team selected by accident into a squad greater than the sum of its parts, capable of reacting differently to different situations.
The Netherlands most likely standing between them and a first semifinal in 43 years, they will need to dip into this reserve to make this start count. In Harendra’s world, though, they have already reached the semifinals.
“In my room, I have already written who we will play in the quarterfinals and the semifinals. A four-nation tournament has finished. The World Cup starts now.” The world will know in four days whether this is supreme confidence or stupidity bordering on the delusional.