Junior Hockey World Cup: Sans much analysis, teams flying in blind

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Valentin Altenburg only managed a wry smile. Germany’s junior team head coach was asked how they had managed to ‘scout teams amid the pandemic’ and he readily accepted that it’s been a challenge. That, in fact, has been the one defining theme of all teams in Bhubaneswar for the junior World Cup. All the 16 teams have faced plenty of challenges in the ‘scouting’ department. It’s a big issue because, without opposition videos and analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, sides could struggle to come up with plans, at least during the group stages.

It’s why Altenburg said there could be a fair few surprises. “All the other nations to have similar problems,” he said. “Teams have struggled with competing (because of Covid). Also why I’m suspecting a few surprises during the tournament.” Because of a lack of information on other teams, video analysis has been restricted. “We don’t know what we usually know because we didn’t play as much as we used to.” He was candid enough to admit that Germany do not know much about, for instance, Pakistan, one of the five games on Wednesday. “Not been easy to get analysis.”

India too suffers from the same problem of a lack of analysis of opposition teams but their junior programme at least keeps all the players under one roof so training isn’t a big issue. For teams like Germany, even that is complicated because the entire contingent do not meet all that often as most of them train separately depending on where they are from. “We have individualised training,” Altenburg added.

One of Germany’s neighbours, Belgium, had an intensive June (they played some friendlies in Spain apart from the centralised schedule) for the junior programme. However, most teams haven’t even had that. Take for example Argentina’s case. Their coach, Lucas Rey, admitted that their junior programme suffered because of their year-long lockdown (the country had one of the toughest quarantine measures during the first wave in 2020). They will rely on players who turned out for the country during the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.

South Africa are also in the same boat. “No international hockey in the last two years which is a big concern, had our first run-out against the US the other day (a friendly) in Bhubaneswar. So hopefully we are ready to come Wednesday (they play Belgium in the opening match),” their coach, Sihle Ntuli, said. “In terms of international exposure, we haven’t had any. So we have just tried to work amongst ourselves.”
Most of the 16 teams have ended up doing that in the last two years. The challenge, how, like Altenburg, said is ‘focus on our own strengths. At the end of the day, my job as a coach is to get out of my team’.