New Delhi, Feb 27 (IANS) The Indian men’s hockey team’s recent performance at the FIH Hockey Pro League 2024-25 (Men) where they won five out of eight matches was backed by a week-long coaching camp for strikers held in Bhubaneswar.

The Indian team is now placed third in the points table only behind England and Belgium while Netherlands, Germany and Australia are placed No. 4 to No.6, respectively, with the finale scheduled in June.

To foster the Indian team’s performance in a crucial year with the FIH Men’s World Cup qualification at sake, Hockey India invited legendary former Australian forward and striker’s coach Michael McCann for a camp in Bhubaneswar between February 6 to 12. McCann was part of Australia’s dream team that won the Athens Olympic gold in 2004 and gold in FIH Champions Trophy 2005 in Chennai.

He is also a two-time silver medallist in FIH Men’s World Cup and back-to-back Commonwealth Games gold medallist in 2002 and 2006. Over the past eight years, McCann has been closely working with the German U21 side and the senior squad.

Underscoring the importance of working with experts like McCann, particularly in the training blocks leading up to the Men’s Asia Cup this year and the World Cup and Asia Cup next year, India chief coach Craig Fulton said, “It was great to have Michael here ahead of our Pro League campaign. This would particularly help the youngsters in the squad and though it was a short camp, it was very effective. We worked a lot of basics and also had one-hour off-the-field sessions so players could also interact with him. We look forward to having more such sessions leading up to the World Cup and Asian Games next year.”

Elaborating on the camp, experienced India striker Mandeep Singh, who scored a magical goal against Ireland that helped the team bounce back from 0-1 to 3-1 win, said, “It was a very good camp and Michael was not only extremely informative on the field but his off-the-field meetings were also extremely knowledgeable, where he showed us a lot of short clips on specific areas.

"I particularly enjoyed the basics inside the D, shot on target two feet from the goal. He also taught us new things specific to strikers' leads and re-leads within the circle and how to deflect from the nine yards mark near the D with two-touch to the goal were some of the interesting aspects he made us work on.”

"Small things like, angle of the body while receiving the ball, fake-passing to beat the defenders in the D was fun to learn. If you see our performance in the Pro League, we scored a lot of field goals. This was a very good learning point for us, and we were able to implement what we learnt in the camp in the matches," he added.

Uttam Singh, also emphasised his learnings from the camp and thanked Hockey India for the exposure.

“The things I particularly enjoyed working on was on my finishing. Michael touched upon how to finish, when we can’t get a full attempt on goal. Receiving the ball and what position we must be in while receiving in the second post and which side we must hold the stick and how important it is to look at the goalkeeper’s position when we take strike were all some of the finer details which I think will help me in the long run. It was a very good experience, especially, for youngsters like me,” expressed Uttam.

The Indian men’s team is currently on a break and will regroup mid-March following the Hockey India Annual Awards to be held in New Delhi.

--IANS

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