Don’t blame it on the boys

Also, I really fear for the boys who will return to India defeated. I know what it is to lose a tournament, especially of this magnitude. We need to take care of the emotional state of these young players. Most of them are in their early twenties, and losing itself would be a devastating blow to them. They need someone to offer them a shoulder to lean on, because they have much to offer in the future. It is the easiest thing to do — pick on them when they are down.

Going to the Olympics is the ultimate dream of any Indian player, and they would be hurting real bad. Only Dilip Tirkey, Ignace Tirkey and William Xalco have been there, and I am sure the whole bunch is distraught. It is an occasion they have missed — and who knows who will get to play after four years, or again, if we will indeed qualify.

It is just very, very sad. But I would not like to blame any individual player, because the problems are too deep- rooted. True, on Sunday, we did not play even 50 per cent to our potential. We were pathetic, and we were lucky to not concede about six goals. It was a complete lack of composure and discipline and a failure of strategy. The two needless yellows exposed us — we were playing with 10 men for over 15 minutes.

We need to start right at the bottom where we have only a handful of good coaches. Children are not learning the right things and they pick up bad habits in technique — our man-marking skills, over-dribbling, et cetera. These are mistakes that go unnoticed and ignored at the domestic level, but they will be badly punished at the international level, more so in the crunch matches.

On the immediate problem, I think our preparation was terrible. We needed to play many more competitive matches before going into this tournament. Britain prepared by playing the Champions Challenge; the only serious team we played in the lead-up was Belgium....