‘India will win hockey medal in Rio’

TORONTO: Olympio Fernandes, goalkeeper of the World Cup winning team in 1975, has asserted that the Indian hockey is set to recapture its past glory and the national team will definitely return home with a medal from the Rio Olympics.
Having watched India’s run to their maiden final at the just-concluded Champions Trophy where they came close to winning the gold medal, Fernandes is buoyed by the performance and insisted that it was not a fluke.
“I have been watching the performance of the Indian hockey team and they played to a plan despite their depleted strength in the Champions Trophy. India hockey has found the right formula to reach the top once again,” Fernandes, who is settled in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga and works for Nissan Canada, told IANS.
“India has hit the right formula by adapting to play ‘rotating hockey’. Full credit to coach Roelant Oltmans . Under him, India have learnt the art of playing rotating hockey or possession hockey. It means that every Indian player is now capable of playing in any position. That’s a big change in the Indian style of playing hockey on astroturf,” he added.
The Goa-born goalkeeper, who represented India from 1975 to 1980, pointed out that the reluctance of India and Pakistan to adapt to astroturf played a major role in the decline of hockey in the sub-continent.
“When astroturf was introduced, India and Pakistan declined as top hockey powers because our players couldn’t match the muscle power of European and Australian players.”
“On grass surfaces, Indians used to play skill hockey and there was no need for muscle power. But on astroturf, it is very difficult to control the ball (because synthetic grass doesn’t bend as easily as natural grass) unless you have the muscle power. But Indian players are now physically as powerful as other European opponents. Their diet is well controlled,” Fernandes explained. (PTI)