The Indian hockey team landed in the wee hours of Wednesday with coach Joaquim Carvalho and a couple of players first coming out of the airport foyer to do a recce on the kind of welcome they would receive. But, thanks to their insipid showing at Santiago, they didn’t have much to bother about. Apart from the waiting media, there was no hockey fan waiting for them with either a slogan or brickbat.

There has been enough mud-slinging in the media, but luckily for them this time around, the players have been left out of the blame game. Coach Carvalho and technical director MM Somaiya stood by their boys in their comments rather than putting the responsibility on them, which is the usual custom.

“In the last match, the boys were under tremendous pressure as they had no option but to win,” says Somaiya, who led the country at the Seoul Olympics. “The referees also added to the pressure.”

Carvalho said nothing different. “When you concede early goals, you are bound to be under pressure. The harsh punishment meted out to us through four yellow cards, two each in the two matches against Britain, reduced us to 10 men for 25 minutes each. That took the wind out of the players. We conceded goals during that period,” he said.

“I’m not making any excuses, but the biased umpiring was clearly evident. The English players were hardly pulled up for fouls on our players while our boys were warned at the drop of a hat. That smacked of pure injustice and made the Indian players overcautious, making them think twice before making a tackle, while giving the English players more freedom to break free and score.”

... contd.