Controversial former India hockey coach Gerhard Rach refuses to take responsibility for past debacles and Dhanraj Pillay's abrupt retirement
Controversial former India hockey coach Gerhard Rach refuses to take responsibility for past debacles and Dhanraj Pillay's abrupt retirement
Gerhard Rach sure knows a thing or two about Indian hockey having been at the helm for five months in 2004 during which the team fared poorly at the Champions Trophy and Athens Olympics. However, India's first foreign hockey coach believes he's not entirely to be blamed for what transpired on the hockey field back then.
"There were a set of egoistic senior players and officials in the background of the Indian hockey set-up, who were not thinking straight and that's why the team failed. This continued even after I left, and the Indian team's failure to make it to the 2008 Beijing Olympics under coach Joaquim Carvalho is another example of that.
"There is no way Carvalho could have helped India qualify for Beijing without Sandeep Singh, who is one of the best drag-flickers in the world," Rach, now coach of the Bangladesh hockey team, told MiD DAY here yesterday after his boys were thrashed 0-9 by India.
The German was also blamed for giving India's mercurial hockey star Dhanraj Pillay a poor send-off having benched him in the last game of the Athens Olympics. He denied this allegation too.
"Dhanraj is a fine player, but at that time there was a lot of infighting in the team and that's why I though it was better to restrict Dhanraj in the last game.
"I had no idea he was going to quit the game thereafter. Soon after the Olympics, K Jothikumaran (then Indian Hockey Federation secretary) came to our room and asked who all are available for the Champions Trophy and that's when Dhanraj, Baljit Dhillon and Gagan Ajit expressed their inability to play.
Talk
"I have nothing against Dhanraj even today, and even went to speak to him when we met on an international tour two years ago, but he refused to talk to me," said Rach.
As for the current Indian side, Rach admitted they are a fine lot. "Jose (Brasa, chief coach) has a done a great job with this bunch. They play hockey with a good flow and I love watching them. It's just like a movie," he said, not before firing a parting shot though: "It would be too much to expect this Indian team to win gold here (that would ensure automatic qualification for the London 2012 Olympics). Just like it was too much to expect them to beat Australia for the gold at last month's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. South Korea are the best team here," he signed off.
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