Is Michael Nobbs the right man to lead India?

The lousy performance continues. After a 4-4 draw against 16th place ranked Ireland, the Indian hockey team succumbed to a defeat against Olympics silver medalist Netherlands. With one defeat and a draw, the Indian team is at the bottom of the Pool B, with a match against New Zealand left in the group stages. Since the drubbing in London Olympics, many things have changed in the Indian team – the players, the management and the training techniques. But one thing that has not changed even after that disaster is the tactics, which points to one man – Michael Jack Nobbs.

The contract of Jose Brasa was not renewed because Hockey India thought that Brasa who led the Spanish women’s team to
Olympics gold, had nothing else to add to Indian hockey after guiding the team to a silver in the Commonwealth Games and bronze in the Asian Games. In came Michael Nobbs, with no experience in international hockey, whose only highlight so far has been guiding India to Gold medal in the inaugural Asian Champions Trophy. Since Brasa’s departure, the performance of Indian team has gone only one way – downwards. It has been two years since his appointment, but Michael Nobbs has nothing to show in his CV, except the failure of the Indian team. While the teams like New Zealand and Belgium have leapfrogged the Indian team during the last 2-3 years, the likes of Netherlands and France have given India a tough competition all over.

The main reason for Michael Nobbs appointment was to introduce Australian style of play in India, which is said to be similar to Indian style hockey. He was bought to ensure that Indians play the Australian style of hockey and become world beaters, but exactly two years on, India is no where near that. The team has gone two steps backward instead of taking steps forward. Looking at the performance in the semi-final leg of the Hockey World League, it looks like a bunch of guys forced to mechanical hockey instead of hockey players using their brains and playing with flair and excitement.

Since Coach Nobbs appointment, all the flair that Indian hockey was known for has evaporated while the defence has not improved one bit. The current lot of Indian strikers are still using the same tactic of hitting the ball from the flanks despite knowing the result of that tactic very well. Why aren’t they following the Australian team strategy over there and using variations in attacking? The defence has not improved a bit, not adding the pathetic state of penalty corners. From the most feared trio of penalty corners, Indian experts have become the weakest in the world, which was evident from the 4 penalty corners earned against Netherlands.

While selectors and Hockey India thought Jose Brasa could not add anything to the Indian team, Michael Nobbs has not added anything to the Indian team in last two years, except the wooden spoon in the Olympics. The only thing that Michael Nobbs is focusing on is the fitness of the players, but as a coach, he should know that the fitness of players is not everything and tactics play a major role in hockey.

Whatever anyone might say in the defence of Michael Nobbs, the point is that he has done absolutely nothing to improve Indian hockey. Under his guidance, the defense has not improved, the attack has weakened and the penalty corner conversions have gone down drastically, with Hockey India having to introduce Roelant Oltmans to overlook the performance.

So, with two years and all those flays, can he really be the right choice for the Indian team when you have legendary Roelant Oltmans by the side?

P.S – After the Olympics, Shivendra Singh blamed Michael Nobbs for poor performance of India and later retracting from that statement. What if he really meant that?