Paul van Ass needs to decelerate. Having travelled the world, directing the staff from the dugout and explaining technique to gamers for many years, the Dutch coach needs to take a backseat from worldwide hockey, particularly after attaining the largest prize there may be within the recreation.
The 64-year-old guided the Dutch girls’s staff to the Paris Olympics gold, which additionally marked the primary time each groups from the identical nation gained the hockey gold. He additionally coached Netherlands males’s staff to silver on the 2012 London Olympics.
However it’s troublesome to maintain van Ass away from India. The India males’s chief coach in 2015 has been an everyday customer to the nation, travelling right here for skilled causes in addition to to expertise Indian tradition. He has toured a number of cities along with his household, together with his son Seve who was a part of the gold-winning staff in Paris.
This time round, van Ass has returned as chief coach of UP Rudras within the revamped Hockey India League (HIL) that shall be held after eight years, from December 28 to February 1.
“My enterprise (funding firm) remains to be working. It comes up No.1. I have to spend time there. I’m additionally not younger anymore. I used to be referred to as by two nationwide groups final month, however I give up and mentioned no to them,” van Ass, who’s on the HIL gamers public sale, advised Hindustan Instances.
“This type of a league is overseeable and good enjoyable. However to educate one other nationwide staff? I might’ve coached the (Dutch) girls until LA 2028. However I assumed no, I did my share and now I would like my time.”
As coach of the Dutch girls’s staff, he was additionally keenly following the Indian girls who did not qualify for the Olympics after making the reduce for each 2016 Rio and 2021 Tokyo.
“That was a bit unlucky,” mentioned van Ass. “The massive drawback for a rustic like India is that you simply lack good high quality video games. Within the Netherlands, we play perhaps 50 video games in a season, right here you’re restricted to fifteen. By the point the match is on and also you begin getting the image, usually it’s too late.”
The benefit European groups have – top of the range groups, open borders, venues inside two hours of driving distance – Asian groups don’t have that geographical luxurious. However van Ass feels that is the place the relaunched HIL can come into play.
“You want some good take a look at matches. If not, then HIL which has a greater degree of play, barely beneath the worldwide commonplace however ok for a younger participant to know that that is what she wants,” mentioned the Dutch coach.
“It’s going to assist in the long term. It’s going to add as much as what the Indian girls’s staff has now as a result of the gamers will get used to taking part in with high worldwide gamers. They’ll see that gamers who they seemed as much as are additionally making errors… issues like that. It’s going to construct their confidence.”
China shocked the hockey world after they ended with a silver medal on the Paris Olympics, virtually edging out Netherlands from their dominant high spot. However van Ass mentioned a comparability with China is unreasonable with the massive quantities of funding gone in over time, bringing on the planet’s finest coaches which even the richest federations can’t match.
“That’s the place the HIL can are available. It is rather good for Indian hockey. I do know that the worldwide hockey group is watching and gamers need to be part of it. The construction – most of eight abroad gamers, the remainder Indian, 4 juniors – it’s a very sensible manner of energising Indian hockey,” he mentioned.
“Don’t neglect your Hardiks and Harmanpreets all emerged from the HIL and now they’re worldwide stars and double Olympic medallists. I see it occurring. HIL will give the Indian girls the highlight. It begins small but when they will come up and develop, it’s a good technique to give hockey right here worldwide commonplace.”