Paul Van Ass seems to be on his way out only six months after taking charge, and Hockey India (HI) will once again have to hunt for a new coach with the Olympics less than a year away.
With the Indian hockey team set to lose another coach in the run-up to the 2016 Rio Olympics, former India captain Viren Rasquinha believes this hire-and-fire approach will act as a deterrent for anyone to take up the job in the future.
Paul Van Ass seems to be on his way out only six months after taking charge, and Hockey India (HI) will once again have to hunt for a new coach with the Olympics less than a year away.
"It doesn't matter whether the next coach is an Indian or foreigner," Rasquinha, the CEO of Olympic Gold Quest, said on Monday. "When we ask ourselves about our new coach, there are two things that we need to know. One, who are the people who can coach our team. And secondly, the most important question is that who will want to come here knowing that there is absolutely no job security.
"How can we give a team in transition a chance to move forward when the coach keeps changing? A new coach brings his own ideas. He goes out, another idea comes in. We don't need that."
Rasquinha said every coach needs his time to settle, and too much of chopping and changing is happening too frequently in Indian hockey.
"We are now running out of options. There are not many people who are available. What we need to realise is that every new coach needs a certain amount of time to settle in. He will take a few months to know the system, the players and the situation that they find themselves in. Starting from scratch is a new coach's biggest problem and it seems to be happening on a far too regular basis here," he said.
However, Rasquinha said the performances in the recently-concluded Hockey World League Semifinals in Antwerp, where India finished fourth, were bad and there was no escaping that fact for the Dutchman.
"The performances in Antwerp were bad. You look at the participating teams there and you wouldn't be satisfied with a fourth place performance. We scraped through against France, beating Poland 3-0 was expected.
Pakistan didn't play full strength and yet we drew 2-2. But what shocked everyone was the 15 goals we conceded in the next three games against Australia (2-6), Belgium (0-4) and Great Britain (1-5). I don't remember the last time an Indian team conceded that many goals in three games," added Rasquinha.
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