With a stubbled look, a grimacing face and a tyre resting on each shoulder, Sjoerd Marijne (pronounced: Show-erd Marine) resembles a battle-hardened warrior as he enters the caged hockey pitch at Bangalore\u2019s Sports Authority of India Centre. In his tow, one of the assistants is carrying a thin plastic sheet, a gallon of water and washing powder.<\/p>\n
The plastic sheet is spread just outside the \u2018D\u2019. Jugraj Singh, one of the assistant coaches, makes a puddle of water on it and mixes some detergent. The players haven\u2019t an idea what their coach is up to. Since he took charge of the men\u2019s hockey team two months ago, Marijne has had several sessions which haven\u2019t had hockey at all. But with tyre, plastic sheet, soap and water as props, they do not know what to expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cSliding challenge,\u201d Marijne announces. They all queue up, and one by one, they run a couple of yards before diving into the slippery, shallow pool. It\u2019s a fun but intense session. Some are scared that their skin will peel off if it brushes against the rubbery surface, and chicken out. Others fall flat on their bums. And then, there are some, like SV Sunil and SK Uthappa, who execute a perfect dive.<\/p>\n
Marijne is crouching at the edge of the sheet, recording the whole session. \u201cI am the director of this team. Those guys are my actors,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes you need to slide to block the ball or get a deflection to score. If you don\u2019t do in train, you won\u2019t do in match. A lot of players hadn\u2019t dived before. Here everybody did it so it was funny and good.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has won over the players with his unconventional methods and infectious energy. But the Dutchman is still an outsider trying to work his way into hockey\u2019s cosy club of coaches. In a sport where there\u2019re only a dozen competitive teams, a handful few have held a firm grip over the cream jobs, constantly shuffling from one international team to another. India, too, has rather infamously been a pit-stop for many. Hockey India has generally chased renowned coaches with proven Olympic pedigree.<\/p>\n
Marijne \u2014 who was appointed compatriot Roelant Oltmans\u2019s successor in September \u2014 is neither renowned nor does he have proven pedigree. Instead, the 43-year-old is a failed tennis player, a club-level player, a school-level gymnastics coach, a professional motivational talker and a hobby golfer. \u201cI was a tennis player in Holland. I was good but nobody helped me on the mental side. Eventually, I didn\u2019t make it big because no one was there to help me with my struggles,\u201d Marijne says. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t win, I didn\u2019t control the emotions. I threw racquets and did such things.\u201d So at 18, he quit tennis and joined Den Bosch, one of Holland\u2019s famous hockey clubs. And by the time he was 26, he\u2019d bid farewell to his playing career to become a full-time coach. After a successful stint with the Dutch women, guiding their junior and senior teams to global success, Marijne was first appointed coach of the Indian women\u2019s team in February this year.<\/p>\n
But even before he could do something meaningful with them to make an impact, he was asked to take over the reins of the men\u2019s team following Oltmans\u2019 surprise sacking. The target set by his employers are borderline unrealistic \u2014 medal at the Commonwealth Games, gold at the Asian Games, podium finish at next year\u2019s World Cup followed by another top-three finish at the Olympics. The next 10 days, however, should provide a glimpse into the true potential of Marijne and his players. The World League Finals, which gets underway in Bhubaneswar on Friday, is a virtual dress rehearsal for next year\u2019s World Cup and for Asian champions India, a true test of their potential.<\/p>\n
Marijne says he has modified the team\u2019s playing style since taking charge but has resisted making drastic changes. \u201cI didn\u2019t interfere too much in the beginning. Style has to be player-driven than coach-driven. It\u2019s like buying a house where someone else lived. Sometimes, you just need to paint it in new colour. At times, you renew it completely. With this team, I have to only change the colour but I have to be really careful with that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
For now, he wants the players to hold the ball for not more than two seconds. \u201cIf you need longer time than two seconds, then the pass is closed and the space is less,\u201d he explains. The rolling substitutions, too, will be more strategic, with a player spending a maximum of three minutes on the field before being subbed for three minutes.<\/p>\n
During practice, it\u2019s a lot of give-and-go hockey \u2013 short, crisp passing instead of long, darting runs. His training sessions are high-pressure and he is actively involved, shouting and demonstrating.<\/p>\n
A couple of senior players said the training is heavier compared to most coaches they\u2019ve played under but his eccentric ways keep them entertained.<\/p>\n
A few days before the \u2018sliding challenge\u2019, Marijne had an unorthodox training drill. He came for training armed with a stereo, playing loud music. Two teams were formed, one led by national captain Manpreet Singh. In that team, all players except Manpreet were blindfolded while the other side was given the licence to distract them \u2013 heckle, mock\u2026 anything but physical contact.<\/p>\n
Amidst the loud music and heckling, the players had to avoid hurdles placed on the field by listening to Manpreet\u2019s instructions. For a team that has subtle cliques, this was Marijne\u2019s way to see just how good the trust was among the players. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to be best friends to play,\u201d Marijne says. \u201cBut you need to trust each other.\u201d Through the course of the next week or so, it\u2019ll be clear as to how much the players trust each other as well as the ideas of their new coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With a stubbled look, a grimacing face and a tyre resting on each shoulder, Sjoerd Marijne (pronounced: Show-erd Marine) resembles a battle-hardened warrior as he enters the caged hockey pitch at Bangalore\u2019s Sports Authority of India Centre. In his tow, one of the assistants is carrying a thin plastic sheet, a gallon of water and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11634,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11632\/revisions\/11634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}