For years, European teams have treated tournaments like the Pro League as preparation, rotating squads, mixing youth with experience, managing minutes. The Champions Trophy was always a good example, European sides arriving with mixed teams while India treated every match as must-win. With Fulton, that has changed. India have started approaching these tournaments the same way, building toward the World Cup rather than chasing points in June.

From an analytical standpoint, the winless record was not alarming. From a results perspective, carrying zero wins into matches against Netherlands and Germany was a real concern. Results affect morale, and India needed something from this leg.

What Rotterdam showed, across all four matches, was a team building something. The counter-attacking urgency, the sharpness of the transitions, the defensive shape holding even when results did not go their way. These were not the signs of a team chasing points. The final match against Netherlands was where that plan looked complete.

Read More: Peaking at the Right Moment: The One Thing That Will Define India at the 2026 FIH Hockey World Cup

Craig Fulton’s Blueprint: How India Defend and Counter

Craig Fulton’s India looks like a well-oiled machine. Accurate, sharp defending, followed by quick, deliberate counter-attacks. There is no panic. Ten years ago, watching India defend was a different experience, there was anxiety in the shape, uncertainty in the recovery runs, a sense that one good move from the opposition could unravel everything.

Fulton arrived after the 2023 World Cup with a clear idea. Defend in numbers, win the ball back, and counter before the opposition resets. It was a shift from the attacking hockey India had been known for. Paris 2024 answered the question of whether this approach was right. India had not beaten Australia in eight matches before that game, including a 7-0 at the Commonwealth Games and a 7-1 at Tokyo. At Paris, through control and structure, they won 3-2, their first Olympic win over Australia since 1972.

Paris was the answer.

There are anomalies. Germany’s second leg in Rotterdam, where India surrendered a lead in the final minutes, was a lapse in concentration. Five minutes of losing focus can change a game. But those are exceptions. The overall pattern, in Rotterdam and before it, has been a defensive performance getting sharper with each match.

Read More: Could Harmanpreet Singh Be More Effective in Midfield?

The Castle: How India Shut Netherlands Out

Netherlands did not get an inch in the final match. Every ball was contested and every piece of space had to be earned.

In a castle, the enemy sieges one door, and behind it they find another set of defensive positions already prepared. That is how India defended. If one player was beaten, at least two more were covering that same space. Netherlands worked for every ball, every inch of turf, and individual brilliance could not find a way through because another wall was always waiting.

Netherlands’ only real outlet was the wide wings, using pace to come in from wide corners. India’s zonal shift dealt with that too, tracking the movement, covering the angles, taking the ball before it became dangerous. Thierry Brinkman, one of Netherlands’ most dangerous players, could not find the space or the influence Netherlands needed from him across either Rotterdam leg. The castle had no door he could open.

The clearest proof came in the final minutes. Netherlands were reduced to ten men and threw everything forward, winning three consecutive penalty corners in the 58th minute. India blocked all three.

At the third quarter break, with India leading 2-1, the Netherlands bench told its own story. Delmee looked concerned. Players sat with lines on their foreheads, the look of a team asking itself why it could not unlock the Indian defence, why there was no space, and why even when space appeared, it was not working.

The Counter-Attacks That Unlocked the Game

India’s defensive structure was not built to absorb pressure and hold on. The second half of the plan was always transition, winning the ball back and moving into dangerous areas before Netherlands could reset.

In the third minute of the second quarter, Rajinder Singh stole the ball from a Dutch player in their own half. One touch to control, then a forward drive to the right, forcing a circle penetration. The sequence that led to India’s second goal started from that steal. The long corner that followed was played to Jarmanpreet Singh on the Dutch right wing. Finding no space, he played it back to Sanjay, also in the Dutch half, whose long slap shot found Abhishek, who finished with his trademark reverse stick first-time strike.

When Manpreet Singh was fouled near the halfway line, India had not even restarted play before Jarmanpreet had already gone long on the Dutch right wing and beaten his marker. The counter was already in motion before the restart.

Craig Fulton, speaking at half-time, said: “Ours is counter, getting the ball in their half and managing the ball better and taking chances.”

Netherlands coach Jeroen Delmee, also at half-time, said: “India has a quality to punish you through circle penetration. Tempo in turnover is what I was looking for.” India found it in the second half.

How India’s Fitness Made the Blueprint Work

India pressed high with their attackers as the first line of defence in the opening quarter, shifting to a mixed press as the match developed. The shape held from the first minute to the last.

There were lapses. The goalkeeper was called into action in the 3rd minute. A defensive error in the 13th minute briefly gave Netherlands an opening. The recovery was immediate, and the lapse in the 13th minute was converted directly into a turnover before Netherlands could capitalise, even inside the D.

Sumit, a centre-back, was on the wings in the second quarter, accepting high balls and joining India’s attack. Jarmanpreet, a right-back, was already in the Dutch half before India had even restarted after Manpreet’s foul. Defenders contributing in attack, recovering from lapses instantly, still available for the counter. Sixty minutes of this demands serious conditioning. And when the structure holds that well, the goalkeeper becomes the last wall rather than the first line of defence. The saves came, but they were standard ones. The hard work was done long before the ball reached him.

What Rotterdam Means for India’s World Cup Preparation

India head to London next, with matches against Pakistan and England. The World Cup is two months away.

The tactics, the defensive shape, the counter-attacking urgency, the fitness to sustain it across four matches against two of the world’s best sides. Rotterdam may not have delivered every result India wanted. But the blueprint is clearer now than it was when they arrived. That matters more than the points.

Enjoying this tactical breakdown? 2026 is a massive year for Indian hockey across the senior and junior ranks. Don’t miss a single blueprint shift—Subscribe on Substack to get unfiltered, analytical match reviews delivered directly to your inbox

<p>The post Fulton’s Blueprint Comes to Life: How India Shut Netherlands Out in Rotterdam first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

What is worth asking, with the World Cup two months away and India still searching for the right balance across the pitch, is whether the position he plays is actually the one that gets the most out of him.

This analysis is based on video review of India’s FIH Pro League matches against Netherlands and Germany in Rotterdam, alongside the goals conceded record from the Rourkela and Hobart legs earlier in the season.

His defensive role has always been straightforward on paper, the last man back, the player whose positioning underpins everything India do without the ball. But increasingly, the question is not whether Harmanpreet Singh matters to this team. It clearly does. The question is whether defence is actually the role he should be playing.

Harmanpreet Singh’s Defensive Positioning

The numbers from India’s home leg in Rourkela were stark. India lost all four matches, conceding 19 goals, including an 0-8 defeat to Argentina. Harmanpreet was rarely visible in the frame during defensive sequences, effectively playing India a man down at the back. His recovery runs were slow.

He then took personal time away from the squad and missed all four matches of the Hobart leg in Australia. India still could not win in regulation, but defensively the picture changed. India conceded just 6 goals across those four matches, compared to 19 in Rourkela. That swing does not prove Harmanpreet’s positioning caused Rourkela’s defensive collapse, a small sample across two legs against different opponents has obvious limits, but it is a real enough shift that it deserves notice.

A similar pattern showed up again against Netherlands in Rotterdam. India conceded an early goal in the second minute. From what was visible, Harmanpreet’s positioning looked partly responsible. Two minutes later, with India defending, he was seen standing next to Jarmanpreet Singh, more focused on watching the ball than actively engaging with the play in front of him. Two separate moments inside the opening four minutes, both pointing to the same concern.

Read More: FIH Pro League 2025-26: 5 Things to Watch as India Heads to Europe

The Vision and the Passing

What makes this complicated is that in the same matches where his positioning was a concern, Harmanpreet Singh was also directly responsible for some of India’s best attacking moments.

In the sixth minute against Netherlands, he sent an aerial ball to Jarmanpreet Singh on the right with pinpoint accuracy, the kind of pass that requires real anticipation and vision to execute. Later in the same match, positioned between India’s own circle and the 5-metre line, he hit a long diagonal slap shot across the width of the pitch to the opposite flank, finding Dilpreet Singh open. Dilpreet scored India’s first goal from that pass.

Against Germany, the pattern repeated. In the sixth minute, India won a free hit near the halfway line. Harmanpreet Singh received it with his back to play, looking set to pass backward. Germany’s defenders shifted to cover that pass. Instead, he played a quick self-pass and released the ball forward with a stick movement too fast to track, beating at least two defenders who had been covering passing lanes. Later in the match, he hit another slap shot from just before the 25-yard line that cut through seven German defenders, the ball running through to Shilanand Lakra, who scored India’s second goal.

Four moments, two matches, the same skill on display each time, a long, accurate pass that finds a teammate in space and turns defence directly into a scoring chance.

Is a Defensive Midfield Role the Answer?

There is a tactical knock-on effect worth considering here. Right now, because India often struggle to progress the ball cleanly from the back, Hardik Singh has had to drop deep into India’s own half to get on the ball and start attacks himself. That takes Hardik further from the opposition’s defensive third, the area where his ability to create and finish matters most.

If Harmanpreet Singh were consistently doing the job of progressing the ball from deep, the long diagonal passes, the disguised forward balls, Hardik would not need to retreat as often. He could stay higher up the pitch, closer to India’s forwards, putting more direct pressure on opposition defenders instead of spending energy collecting possession deep in his own half.

That is not a small shift. It would change where India’s best playmaker spends most of his time on the pitch.

None of this means Harmanpreet Singh has solved his defensive positioning. He has not. The same issue that showed up in Rourkela showed up again against Netherlands. What it does suggest is that his value to this team right now is not really about being the last line of defence. It is about penalty corners, and increasingly, about the passing range that looks more suited to a defensive midfield role than a traditional back line position.

The World Cup is two months away. Nobody is going to shift a captain’s position mid-cycle based on two matches. But the question is worth sitting with, because right now, Harmanpreet Singh looks like he has more to offer India going forward than he does standing still.

2026 is a big year for Indian hockey. Nations Cup. World Cup. Asian Games. We will be covering every important moment of this journey. Subscribe to the Give Me Hockey newsletter and stay with us through all of it.

Jimmy Bhogal is the founder of Give Me Hockey.

<p>The post Could Harmanpreet Singh Be More Effective in Midfield? first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

India sit eighth in the standings with 4 points from 8 matches, ahead of only Pakistan. The European leg takes them to Rotterdam to face Netherlands and Germany, before moving to London for matches against Pakistan and England.

The World Cup is the priority. Asian Games gold offers direct Olympic qualification for 2028. Both tournaments demand a squad that is fit, settled, and scoring goals. There is also an open question of peaking at the right moment, something India have struggled with before. Right now, India are 0 for 8 with the lowest goal tally in the league.

With the World Cup and Asian Games in mind, here are five things worth watching as India begin this leg.

1. Results Now or a Plan for August?

India have not won a single match this Pro League season. Eighth place, ahead of only Pakistan, with Netherlands, Germany, Pakistan, and England waiting in Rotterdam and London.

Go all out, chase a result, end the winless run, give the squad something to build confidence on heading into the World Cup. That is one option.

But there is history here that complicates it. At the 2023 World Cup, India beat Spain on day one, then faded over the following nine days, eventually losing on penalties to New Zealand in the crossover after leading 3-1 with nine minutes left. India peaked too early. By the time it mattered most, the sharpness was gone.

The European leg sits two months before the World Cup. If India go all out here purely to get a result, they risk being in a similar position come August, sharp now, faded later.

The honest tension is this. Does India use Rotterdam and London to build combinations, fitness, and tactics with August in mind? Or does a winless season demand a result now, even if it means peaking at the wrong time again?

Read More: Peaking at the Right Moment: The One Thing That Will Define India at the 2026 FIH Hockey World Cup

2. Where Are the Goals?

India have scored 9 goals in 8 matches this season, the lowest in the Pro League.

The forward line is the most obvious concern. Abhishek has played 7 matches and scored 0 goals. Sukhjeet Singh has played 3 and scored 0. Between them, India’s first-choice forwards have not found the net once this season.

Part of this could be a service problem. Watching India this season, the midfield has not consistently created chances for the forward line. If the ball is not getting to Abhishek and Sukhjeet in positions to score, the goal drought is not just a finishing issue, it becomes a question about how India build attacks through midfield.

Penalty corners tell a similar story. India have scored 4 PC goals from 21 attempts, a conversion rate of 19 percent. On its own, that is a respectable number. But when your forwards are not scoring from open play, the penalty corner unit needs to do more than be respectable. It needs to be the difference.

Read More: FIH Pro League: India’s Squad and Schedule for European Leg

3. If Not Harmanpreet, Then Who?

Penalty corner specialists hunt in pairs. Most top hockey nations have at least two recognised drag-flickers who can both occupy the top of the circle, giving the opposition two threats to defend rather than one.

India still relies overwhelmingly on Harmanpreet Singh. If he is off form, injured, or simply has a quiet day, the question becomes immediate: who else can step up?

Jugraj Singh has been the traditional second option but his numbers this season, 1 from 6, do not inspire confidence. Amandeep Lakra is an interesting case. He scored 9 goals in the Hockey India League for his franchise and 2 at the Junior World Cup, showing he has the ability. But he has played only 3 matches for India and is yet to convert at senior international level. Amit Rohidas can still contribute but mostly takes hits now rather than drag-flicks, a different kind of penalty corner threat altogether.

Rotterdam and London are an opportunity to find out if India has a genuine second option, or if Harmanpreet remains a one-man penalty corner unit heading into the World Cup.

4. Harmanpreet’s Form and Leadership in FIH Pro League

During India’s home leg of FIH Pro League in Rourkela, Harmanpreet Singh’s positioning was a concern. He was rarely visible in the frame during defensive sequences, raising questions about his role as the last line of defence. There was also a visible drop in how quickly he covered ground, a problem for a player whose entire role depends on being the last man back, covering spaces before attackers get there.

Harmanpreet then took personal time away from the squad and missed all four matches of the Hobart leg in Australia.

He returns as captain for the European leg. The question is which version of Harmanpreet shows up. The one whose positioning and pace were under scrutiny in Rourkela, or a sharper, more engaged defender and leader.

As captain, his presence on the pitch sets the tone for the rest of the side. Rotterdam and London will tell us a lot about where he stands.

5. The World Cup Audition

This is the last Pro League leg before the World Cup squad is announced. 22 players are in this squad. 18 will go to the World Cup. Four will not. The question is which 4 players will miss the World Cup bus. Here is how things look right now.

Several positions are settled. Harmanpreet, Amit Rohidas, Sumit, Sanjay, and Jarmanpreet look set in defence. Manpreet Singh, Hardik Singh, and Vivek Sagar Prasad are sure shots in midfield. Mandeep Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, and Abhishek look set in attack.

But several spots remain open. In defence, Yashdeep Siwach, Amandeep Lakra, and Jugraj Singh are all competing, with Jugraj under the most scrutiny given his recent form. The midfield, Raj Kumar Pal, Nilakanta Sharma, and Rabichandra Singh Moirangthem are fighting for the remaining spots, alongside Rajinder Singh, the least experienced of the group but talked about as a long-term successor to Sardar Singh’s role. In attack, Aditya Arjun Lalage, Dilpreet Singh, Shilanand Lakra, and Selvam Karthi are all in contention for the remaining forward spots.

Goalkeeping has its own storyline. Suraj Karkera looks set to be India’s number one. The second spot is between Mohith and Krishan Bahadur Pathak. Pathak was expected to inherit the gloves after Sreejesh’s retirement in 2024. Instead, he finds himself on standby with others ahead of him in the pecking order.

Rotterdam and London are the last major opportunity for these players to make their case before the World Cup squad is finalised.

Read More: 411 Caps and Still Going: The Manpreet Singh Story

What FIH Pro League Need to Show

India head to Europe without a win and with more questions than answers. The World Cup is only two months away. Whether it is goals, penalty corners, Harmanpreet’s form, or the battle for World Cup places, Rotterdam and London should tell us whether India have learned from an ordinary Pro League campaign so far. They may not be looking to peak in June, but they will want signs that the pieces are beginning to come together before August.

2026 is a big year for Indian hockey. Nations Cup. World Cup. Asian Games. We will be covering every important moment of this journey. Subscribe to the Give Me Hockey newsletter and stay with us through all of it

<p>The post FIH Pro League 2025-26: 5 Things to Watch as India Heads to Europe first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

Read More: The Sreejesh Paradox: Why India’s Most Successful Junior Coach Was Passed Over for a Foreign Vision

White guided Belgium U21 women to bronze at the 2025 Junior World Cup. He was part of the Belgium senior staff that took the women from 12th to 3rd in the world. They reached the Paris 2024 semi-finals. Soyez has coached at three Olympics. He won Junior World Cup silver with France in 2013 and spent seven years building Spain into a European force. White is also not an unfamiliar face in India. He coached the Accord Tamil Nadu Dragons in HIL Season 2 before taking up this role.

Hockey India has recruited well. Both appointments carry a clear mandate. Build a pipeline. Develop players who can bridge to the senior team. Prepare for India’s 2036 Olympic bid, with Ahmedabad as the proposed host city. However, the structure for Indian junior hockey today does not match the ambition.

How Does the Calendar Look Today?

In 2026, both junior teams have one confirmed tournament. The Junior Asia Cup in Moqi, China. The Sultan of Johor Cup for the men has not been announced yet. The women’s side has no invitational tournament equivalent. That is the reality facing two coaches who have just arrived with a mandate to build towards 2027.

This is not unusual, it is the pattern. In World Cup years, both teams play four to six tournaments. In non-World Cup years, that drops to one or two. Sometimes just one.

*As of May 2026. 2020 not captured as hockey was impacted by Covid.

The next Junior World Cup is in 2027. Six months remain in 2026 and both programmes have one tournament confirmed. That is not a preparation calendar. That is a holding pattern.

The Investment

Hockey India has not disclosed what Soyez and White are being paid. But Craig Fulton’s salary provides useful context. Fulton is the highest paid foreign coach engaged by any National Sports Federation in India. He earns Euro 24,286 per month. That figure was confirmed through a Rajya Sabha reply in December 2025. Even if they earn one third of Fulton’s salary, that is approximately Rs 8.10 lakh per month per coach. This takes Rs 100 to the euro as a working average.

Foreign coaches earn far more than Indian coaches in hockey. That gap is well documented and goes beyond any single appointment. An Indian coach at the top of the system earns between Rs 2.25 and Rs 2.50 lakh per month. A mid-level Indian coach earns around Rs 1 lakh. If Hockey India had appointed Indian coaches to both junior roles, the combined monthly outlay would likely have been under Rs 5 lakh.

The federation has chosen to go foreign. The credentials of these coaches justify that call. But it makes the question of competitive exposure more pointed. You cannot justify the spend on the coaches without also justifying the spend on giving them something to work with.

This is not an argument against paying Soyez and White well. Both are experienced coaches who should command competitive salaries. The question is simpler. If Hockey India is spending big on coaches, the calendar has to reflect that ambition. One confirmed tournament per programme in 2026 is not a return on that investment. It is a wasted opportunity.

The Structure Gap and What Can Be Done

The senior men’s team has the FIH Pro League. Roughly 16 home and away matches against the world’s best sides every season. The junior teams have nothing close to that. The gap is not just between senior and junior hockey in India. It is between how Indian junior players build competitive experience and how their European counterparts do it.

A Dutch or Belgian junior player at a top club plays 30 to 40 competitive matches in a season before reaching a national camp. European junior players arrive at tournaments match sharp because their club seasons demand it. Indian junior players do not have that. Soyez and White know what a match-ready player looks like. They will notice the difference quickly.

Extend the HIL roster for junior players

Hockey India could ask each HIL franchise to field at least three junior players. The cost would be split between Hockey India and the franchise. Junior players would not command significant salaries unless exceptional. That makes this a low-cost addition for franchises. Junior players get competitive HIL exposure. Soyez and White get players who arrive at national camps having played real hockey, not just practised it.

Build more MoUs on the Australia model

IIndia and Australia already have a framework for bilateral matches at senior and junior level. The current U-18 Australian men’s and women’s teams are in India for matches. The senior sides have also toured each other ahead of major tournaments. Hockey India should now look to build similar arrangements with New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina. None of these countries have strong domestic structures. Many of their players are based in European club competitions. Guaranteed fixtures serve both sides. Their teams get competitive matches outside Europe. India gets intensity of playing against physical, well-coached opposition.

Revive the Australian Hockey League model

India junior men entered the Australian Hockey League as a team in 2016 and 2017. Hockey One League replaced it and already has an appetite for international involvement. The MoU with Australia makes this a conversation worth having, either as a team entry or as individual players picked up by clubs.

Inter-squad domestic tournaments

Cricket in India runs A, B, and C team tournaments that mix first-choice, development, and junior players. Junior players get quality exposure without international travel. Hockey has national championships domestically, and last year saw national team players take part for the first time. But Soyez and White are not connected to that domestic structure. An India A versus India B format, run by the junior coaches, gives them match-sharp players. It gives fringe players a real pathway.

None of this requires a structural overhaul. It requires Hockey India to be more deliberate with what it already has.

Soyez and White are good appointments. But credentials alone do not build a junior programme. Hockey India has made the announcements. Now it needs to build the structure that gives these coaches a real chance to deliver.

2026 is a big year for Indian hockey. Nations Cup. World Cup. Asian Games. A lot can go right. A lot can go wrong. Subscribe to the Give Me Hockey newsletter and follow every step of it.

<p>The post Why Hiring Tim White and Frederic Soyez is Only a Half-Battle first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

Sreejesh came back with sharper questions. Hockey India offered him a role coaching the development squad. He asked who the players were, what the structure was, what camps were planned, what tournaments they were preparing for. Hockey India has not responded to his latest post on social media website X.

Read More: The Sreejesh Paradox: Why India’s Most Successful Junior Coach Was Passed Over for a Foreign Vision

Hockey India named Sardar Singh as coach of the developmental squad, ideally to prepare the India A side for the Commonwealth Games. He ended up coaching the India A developmental squad at the Asia Cup in May 2022, where they finished third. After that, nothing. No matches, no camps, no updates.

Sardar moved to Hockey 5s in August 2023, then to the U17 side for a Netherlands tour in October 2023, then back to coach the Hockey 5s World Cup in January 2024. The developmental squad has not played since May 2022. Hockey India offered Sreejesh a role in that programme. Is this a functioning structure or one being dusted off because Hockey India needed somewhere to put him?

Sreejesh also shared the numbers. Four teams. Six foreign coaches. Three foreign strength and conditioning coaches. One foreign video analyst. Two visiting foreign goalkeeper coaches. One visiting foreign sports psychologist. His question was simple. Can Indian coaches develop Indian hockey?

Was the Appointment Ever Logical?

Sreejesh’s appointment as coach of India’s junior team was nothing less than a surprise. There is no doubt about his on-field credentials and we are in no way questioning that. However, Sreejesh had just won his second Olympic medal in Paris. He retired immediately after, they retired his jersey number in a ceremony, and within the same breath Hockey India appointed him chief coach of the junior men’s team.

CR Kumar had been coaching the junior men’s side through the Sultan of Johor Cup and Junior World Cup 2023. What did he do wrong? Was there a review, a process, a reason given for the change? Hockey India made none of that public. At no point during this entire sequence did anyone publicly ask what Sreejesh’s coaching credentials were. Was this a coaching appointment or a farewell gift that came with a job attached?

The Mentorship Programme and What It Produced

Read More: Hockey India’s New Coaching Mentorship Program Could Be a Gamechanger

In 2025, Hockey India launched a coaching mentorship programme. The stated goal was to build an Indian coaching pipeline, give experienced domestic coaches exposure to top level methods, and reduce long term dependence on foreign coaches. Eight Indian coaches, all holding FIH Level 3 certification, shadowed Craig Fulton and Harendra Singh during national camps. It was a promising idea on paper.

But the timing raises questions. Sreejesh was the sitting junior men’s chief coach when the programme ran. He holds Level 3. Was he part of it? If he was not included, a coach at national level was left outside a programme designed specifically to develop coaches at that level. If he was included, why has nobody said so? Either way, Hockey India has not connected the programme to the people it was supposed to benefit.

And who were the eight coaches? Hockey India has not published their names. We do not know what level they were coaching at before the programme, what they were coached on, or where they went after. A mentorship programme should have measurable outcomes. Did Hockey India set targets for what these coaches would go on to achieve? Were they tracked? Did they publish it? None of that is in the public domain. A programme with no names, no outcomes, and no accountability is not a pipeline. It is a gesture.

Does that work or do you want to push any of these points further?

The Results Were There

The results were there. Four podiums from five events. A Junior Asia Cup gold. A Junior World Cup bronze on home soil. India finished on the podium in every medal tournament Sreejesh coached. Sreejesh has done great as a coach in the limited time had with the team.

The bronze medal match against Argentina told its own story. India trailed 2-0 with eleven minutes left. They scored four times to win. A team that does that has not just been prepared tactically. They have been prepared physically and mentally to keep going when the game is against them.

This is something the senior men’s team does consistently under Craig Fulton. They stay fresh in Q4 and when they get going, they give opponents no breathing space. If the junior team was already playing the same way, that culture was filtering down from the senior setup. Which raises a fair question. If Fulton’s philosophy was already reaching the junior players, what exactly would a foreign junior coach add that was not already there?

The 2018 Question and What Follows From It

Sreejesh’s words from 2018 stay with me every time I read his name alongside the word coaching. When Marijne was coaching the senior men, Sreejesh pushed back hard against the player-driven approach. He said the coach should show players where to walk, draw the picture first. If he coached his junior team the same way, then Fulton’s preference for a foreign coach starts to make sense. A coach who believes players need to be led rather than empowered is not building the kind of autonomous, decision-making culture modern hockey demands.

Marijne said it himself in 2018. Getting Indian players to unlearn habits from childhood and adopt a different way of playing is hard work.

Whether Sreejesh carried those beliefs into his coaching is something only those inside the camp would know. Hockey has changed rapidly. Players now take more decisions on their own, read situations in real time, and are expected to solve problems without waiting to be told. Did his approach as a coach reflect what he said as a player in 2018? And if it did, did that cost him the job?

The High Performance Director Problem

The HPD job description Hockey India published this week makes the role clear. The HPD sets targets and KPIs for all national teams, oversees coaching development, manages the pipeline from grassroots to senior level, and implements the high performance strategy across all age groups. It is the most important non-coaching role in Indian hockey.

David John held the position from 2016 until he resigned in August 2020. He spent much of his tenure in the dugout alongside the head coach. His reasoning for appointing Marijne as men’s coach in 2017 was that Marijne understood Indian culture after six months with the women’s team. Eight months later, Sreejesh and senior players were complaining that Marijne’s methods did not work for Indian players. That is not a vision. That is improvisation.

Hockey India then appointed Herman Kruis as HPD in January 2024, a contract that ran only until September 2024. Since then, the position has been vacant. A functioning HPD would have assessed whether Sreejesh was the right appointment, ensured he met the required coaching standards, and if the decision was still to go with him, built the support structure around him. Whether Fulton expressed a preference for a foreign coach or not, that is a conversation an HPD should have been part of. Instead, that position sat empty through the entire period in question.

The application deadline for the new HPD was today, May 15, 2026.

Read More: The Federation Is Not the Dressing Room, Part 2: What Hockey India Own Documents Reveal

The Question That Remains

The Sreejesh and Hockey India public dispute has opened a can of worms that goes well beyond one contract. Was the decision to appoint Sreejesh correct in the first place? If yes, then looking at his results, was the decision not to offer him a renewal fair? What happened to the mentorship programme and what did it produce? Why has the HPD position been vacant since September 2024 and what has Indian hockey lost because of it?

And then there is this. Hockey India’s own website lists 337 Level 1 certified coaches, 54 Level 2, 80 FIH Academy Level 1, 57 FIH Academy Level 2, 74 FIH Academy Level 3, and 4 FIH Academy Level 4. Over 600 certified Indian coaches. Where are they? What are they coaching? What support are they getting to reach the next level?

Sreejesh asked whether Indian coaches can develop Indian hockey. The answer is not in the argument between him and Hockey India. It is in those numbers.

Before You Go

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Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Sreejesh’s FIH coaching qualifications were not public. Hockey India’s records confirm he holds an FIH Level 3 coaching badge. The article has also been updated to correctly reflect FIH’s Coaching Education Pathway, which has four levels: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and High Performance. Both sections have been updated accordingly.

<p>The post The Sreejesh-Hockey India Dispute Is About More Than Just One Coaching Job first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

Two days later, a different Indian side turned up. One that looked deflated, out of ideas, and tired. India faced England and could not score. 0-0.

January 19. Wales. A minnow side. India led 2-0 and looked comfortable. Then Wales scored twice in the 43rd and 45th minutes to level it at 2-2. India eventually won 4-2, with Akashdeep scoring in the 46th minute and Harmanpreet in the 60th. But the warning signs were there.

January 22. The crossover. New Zealand, a team that had won only one of their three group games. India led 3-1 with nine minutes left. Lalit had scored in the 18th minute. Sukhjeet in the 25th. Varun in the 41st. The quarterfinals felt inevitable.

Then Lane scored in the 29th minute. Russell equalled the 44th. Findlay in the 50th. 3-3. Penalties. India were knocked out.

The team that had beaten Spain on day one could not hold a two-goal lead against a side that barely qualified for the crossover round. Nine days. Four matches. The sharpness that was there on January 13 was gone by January 22.

While Indian fans have been calling this pressure or the inability to hold their nerves, there is another aspect that we fail to grasp. Peaking at the right time. And understanding it might be the most important thing Craig Fulton does between now and August 15.

What Peaking Actually Means

Peaking is not something a coach talks a team into. It is something the body goes through. Tudor Bompa, one of the world’s leading sports scientists and author of the coaching manual published by World Rowing’s FISA development programme, defines it precisely. Peaking is a temporary state of training produced when physical and psychological elements are maximised and when technical and tactical preparation are optimal. It is not something that happens by accident. It is planned, sequenced, and timed.

In plain terms: there is a window when a team is at its absolute best. The job of a coach is to make sure that window opens at the right tournament, not three months before it.

The key word in Bompa’s definition is temporary. An athlete or a team cannot sustain peak performance indefinitely. The body does not work that way. What Bompa calls the overcompensation cycle explains why. Hard training breaks the body down. Recovery allows it to rebuild, and crucially, to rebuild higher than before. That rebuilt state is the peak. But if competition demands keep coming before recovery is complete, the body never reaches that higher state. It stays flat, or starts to decline. The team looks the same from the outside. Inside, they have already given their best.

Read More: India’s Big Call: Chase World Cup Glory or Secure Olympic Qualification?

What the Research Shows

James Hillier, former National Coach for England Athletics and now Athletics Director at the Reliance Foundation, puts it directly. “Peaking starts on the first day of training, not a week before competition,” he told Scroll.in. “I have always been a big advocate of less is more in the period before a major competition. A lot of people make the mistake of doing too much before the big competitions. It is a very common mistake.”

Bompa goes further with a specific number that is directly relevant to Indian hockey right now. Studies of elite athletes show that seven to ten competitions are enough to reach a high state of readiness for a major tournament. More than that and the risk of declining performance before the main event increases significantly. The longer the phase of weekly competitions, Bompa writes, the lower the probability of duplicating high results.

Eight Pro League matches. June 14 to June 28. That number is not a coincidence. It sits exactly within the optimal range.

Read More: The Federation Is Not the Dressing Room, Part 2: What Hockey India Own Documents Reveal

FIH Hockey World Cup 2018: When India Got It Wrong

In June 2018, India finished second at the Champions Trophy in Breda, Netherlands. It was one of their best results in years against top international opposition. The momentum felt real. The confidence was genuine.

What followed was a compressed, brutal schedule. Asian Games in Jakarta in August. World Cup in Bhubaneswar in November. Three major tournaments in six months, each treated as a must-win, each demanding peak output from the same group of players.

At the FIH Hockey World Cup, India topped their group above Belgium, who went on to win the entire tournament. India and Belgium finished level on points. That is not a team that has lost its way tactically. That is a team performing at a very high level in the group stage. Then they lost to the Netherlands in the quarterfinals and went home.

Apply Bompa’s framework and the picture becomes clear. India had been in high-intensity competitive mode since June. By November, the overcompensation cycle had no room to work. The body was not rebuilding between tournaments. It was just coping. The peak had come and gone months before the World Cup arrived.

FIH Hockey World Cup 2023: The Same Mistake, Different Year

The 2023 FIH Hockey World Cup was on home soil. India had the venues, the crowd, the preparation time. What they also had was an eleven-match block in the two months directly before it.

In late October and early November, India hosted six Pro League matches in Bhubaneswar against New Zealand and Spain. Competitive matches, home crowd, high intensity. Then in late November and early December, India toured Australia for five test matches in Adelaide. They lost four of the five. But look at the scorelines. 5-4, 7-4, 3-4, 5-1, 5-4. These were not comfortable defeats. These were physically brutal, high-scoring, end-to-end matches against the world’s best side. The kind of matches that take something out of you even when you win.

By the time the World Cup arrived in January 2023, India had been in high-intensity competition mode since October. Eleven matches in two months. Bompa’s warning about the declining probability of high results after a long competitive phase was not abstract. India had lived it. You saw it in how they played against England on January 15. You saw it again against New Zealand on January 22.

Tokyo Olympics 2021: When Circumstance Forced the Right Approach

Tokyo 2021 was different for a reason nobody would have chosen. Covid eliminated the competitive calendar entirely. India could not tour. They could not play international matches. They trained in a bio-bubble in Bengaluru, separated from the world, preparing without the competitive rhythm that coaches normally rely on.

And then they beat Great Britain 3-1 in the Olympic quarterfinals. The result which gave hope to India for the first time in decades.

The bio-bubble preparation forced exactly what Bompa’s science recommends. A long build-up without the accumulated fatigue of a heavy competition schedule. The body had time to reach overcompensation. The team arrived at Tokyo not spent from months of back-to-back tournaments but genuinely fresh, with the physical and psychological capacity to produce something special when it mattered most.

It was not planned that way. But it worked that way. And that distinction matters enormously for what comes next.

Paris Olympics 2024: When Fulton Got It Right

Before the Paris Olympics, India’s preparation results were poor by any measure. They lost all five test matches in Australia. At the Four Nations in South Africa, results were mixed. At the Five Nations in late 2023, they did poorly. Every conventional reading of that form said India were not ready.

But Craig Fulton was not chasing results in those tournaments. He was managing load, rotating combinations, testing players under competitive pressure without demanding peak output. The intent was never to win in Australia or South Africa. The intent was to arrive at Paris at the right point on the curve.

In Paris, India beat Australia 3-2 in group stages. A match that still gives goosebumps. India ended up winning bronze at the Paris Olympics, beating Spain 2-1 in the bronze medal match.

That sequence, poor preparation results followed by a major tournament performance, is not a coincidence. It is what deliberate peaking looks like from the outside when you do not understand what the coach is actually doing. Fulton understood the difference between preparation form and tournament readiness. Paris proved it.

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FIH Hockey World Cup 2026: What Fulton May Be Looking To Do

India’s Pro League form across the last two seasons looks alarming on paper. Winless across multiple matches, sitting eighth in the current standings. The instinct is to treat this as a crisis.

The current Pro League winless run needs to be read through the same lens as Paris 2024. Is this genuine decline or deliberate preparation management? The honest answer is that from the outside, it is impossible to know with certainty. What we can say is that the pattern fits. A coach who managed the Paris preparation correctly is capable of doing the same for the World Cup.

The eight Pro League matches in Rotterdam and London, June 14 to June 28, are not results to be won. They are the competition block that Bompa’s research says is exactly the right number to reach peak readiness. The question is whether Fulton uses them to find answers about midfield combinations and penalty corner structures, rather than chasing points in a standings table where India cannot realistically compete for the title.

Sometime after the Paris Olympics, I had a conversation with K Arumugam, one of India’s most respected hockey writers. We were discussing the 2026 World Cup and what Fulton’s preparation might look like. We both came back to the same point. Before Paris, the form was worrying. It did not look like a team ready to win a bronze medal. Then they did. Now, looking at the Pro League results, the pattern looks familiar. Is Fulton doing the same thing again? Is this the Paris preparation repeating itself? That is the question neither of us could answer with certainty. But we both knew it was worth asking.

Read More: Men’s FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 Schedule: Full Fixtures, Groups and India Match Dates

What August 15 Will Tell Us

Peaking at the right moment is not a mystery. It is a decision. A coaching decision made months before the tournament, through every training session, every competition selected, every player rotation, every time a coach chooses to rest rather than push.

India have got this wrong before. FIH Hockey World Cup 2018 showed what happens when you peak too early. 2023 showed what happens when the competitive load runs too long. Tokyo and Paris showed what happens when the approach is right, whether by design or by circumstance.

Fulton has eight matches in June and 48 days after them before the World Cup opens. How he uses both will tell us everything about whether India arrive in Amstelveen at the top of their curve or past it.

The tournament does not care about Pro League standings or preparation results. It only cares about what a team produces on the day that matters. For India, that day is August 15.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are those of the author. References: Tudor Bompa, Peaking for the Major Competition, FISA Coaching Development Programme. Ernest Maglischo, The Taper Period, FISA Coaching Development Programme. James Hillier interview, Scroll.in.

<p>The post Peaking at the Right Moment: The One Thing That Will Define India at the 2026 FIH Hockey World Cup first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

In case you missed it, read Part 1 here: The Federation Is Not the Dressing Room: Why Hockey India Needs Professional Administration

Part 2 goes deeper. Because the problem is not just about who sits in the chair. It is about the system that puts them there, keeps them there, and never once asks what they have done with the power. Hockey India’s own documents, its annual reports, its AGM minutes, its court records, tell that story better than any opinion piece can.

Who Is in the Chair and What Do They Bring to It

What does the president of a national sports federation actually need to do? Build commercial partnerships. Drive revenue independence. Set strategic direction. Manage relationships with government, sponsors, and the international federation. These are the demands of the role.

Dilip Tirkey is one of India’s greatest hockey players. 412 caps, three Olympics, Asian Games gold in 1998. After retirement, he moved into politics. Rajya Sabha MP representing Biju Janata Dal, Lok Sabha candidate, Chairman of Odisha Tourism Development Corporation. That is his post-hockey background. He is now president of Hockey India.

Tirkey has vast hockey knowledge. He knows what players need. He understands what the game demands at the highest level. That knowledge genuinely belongs in Indian hockey, in a high performance committee, an athlete welfare board, or in a role where his experience shapes how players are developed and supported. The question is whether that background matches what the president’s role actually demands. Administrative capability, commercial vision, governance experience. What does his track record show in those areas?

Now look at the secretary general’s role. Operational management, financial oversight, legal compliance, day to day governance. Bhola Nath Singh is a wrestling coach from Jharkhand who served as vice president of the Wrestling Federation of India and president of Jharkhand’s wrestling and hockey bodies. He is now the secretary general of Hockey India, the most powerful operational role in Indian hockey. What does his background bring to those specific demands?

These are not personal questions. They are job description questions. And they are questions that the system never asks before putting people in these roles.

Elections That Produce No Vision

Hockey India conducts elections. There is a returning officer. Official documents are published. Nomination forms, bylaws, objection processes, all of it is there. On paper, the process is followed correctly.

What is missing is the most important thing. What does the person standing for election actually want to do? There is no manifesto. No vision document. No public agenda. State federation representatives vote without knowing what they are voting for. They know who is contesting. They do not know why.

In the 2022 elections, one candidate filed nominations for multiple posts. Not one post, multiple. The question that raises is simple. Are you fighting these elections to serve a specific role, with a specific vision for what that role should achieve? Or are you fighting to make sure you are in the room, in some capacity, regardless of which room it is?

What emerged from those elections was not a contest of ideas. It was one group replacing another. And when elections are a contest of factions rather than ideas, nothing changes for the sport. The chair changes hands. The system stays exactly where it was.

Read More: India’s Big Call: Chase World Cup Glory or Secure Olympic Qualification?

Power With No Accountability

As we discussed in Part 1, the secretary general holds the real operational power in most Indian sports federations, not the president. That structure is not unique to Hockey India. But what Part 1 did not go into is the cost of that power having no checks around it.

The numbers tell that story. According to data compiled by sports law experts and reported by The Indian Express in March 2025, approximately 770 lawsuits related to sports and sporting bodies have been filed since 2015, at different stages across courts and central tribunals in India. Of these, 462 are in High Courts and 22 in the Supreme Court. Vidushpat Singhania, managing partner of sports law firm Krida Legal, described it plainly: literally every federation is in dispute. The All India Football Federation alone spent Rs 3 crore fighting legal cases.

Hockey India’s legal and professional fees, Rs 3.23 crore in FY 2023-24 and Rs 1.30 crore in FY 2024-25, are not an outlier. They are a symptom of a system that has no internal mechanism to resolve disputes before they reach courts. No board sets annual goals for the secretary general. KPIs are never measured at the end of the year. No performance review happens against published targets. When one role holds all operational power and answers to no formal accountability structure, courts end up doing the job that governance should be doing. And every rupee spent on legal fees is a rupee not spent on developing the sport.

What Hockey India Documents Actually Show

Hockey India’s 2024-25 annual report runs to 198 pages. It covers every tournament played, every tour conducted, every award given, every coaching course completed, every player who debuted, every player who retired, every camp held. It is a detailed record of activity. What it does not contain is a single forward looking target. No commercial revenue objective. No framework against which the administration will measure itself in the coming year. 198 pages, all looking backwards.

What Are Others Doing

The KNHB in the Netherlands publishes an annual plan alongside its financial accounts. Their 2026 plan sets a 7.5% growth target for the youngest youth segment, a 10% growth target for seniors aged 35 to 45, and a 2.5% reduction target for churn among players aged 16 to 24. Every target has a percentage. Every percentage will be measured and reported the following year. Hockey Australia’s 2025 Strategic Plan fits on one page. Vision, pillars, measurable focus areas, LA 2028 named as a goal with milestones.

England Hockey reported income of £11.4 million with year on year comparison, explained a deficit of £182,000 with a recovery plan, and presented a Channel 4 broadcast deal covering 42 matches that generated 700,000 live views as a commercial outcome.

Hockey India’s AGM in July 2025 tells the same story. Nine agenda items. The majority consumed by political disputes. The Delhi Hockey disaffiliation. The Mahesh Dayal petitions. The Vice President vacancy. Telangana Hockey’s communications. Recovery proceedings against a former president. Not a single agenda item about the future of the sport. No strategic goal for the coming year. Not a mention about commercial target. No membership plan. Nothing.

The KNHB’s November 2025 AGM discussed the annual plan and budget for 2026 with specific percentage targets for every membership segment, reported a club satisfaction survey result of 6.6 out of 10 openly, and committed to an action plan to improve it. A federation voluntarily telling its members it scored 6.6 out of 10 and here is what it will do about it. That is what accountability looks like from the inside.

What All of This Produces

Hockey India called the Hockey India League a success. Three teams did not make it to Season 2. UP Rudras withdrew citing financial concerns. Team Gonasika cited personal reasons. Odisha Warriors pulled out of the women’s league with reports of difficulty paying players. This does not look like success, in any way.

The metric being used is social media impressions. Billions of impressions for the entire tournament. India has 1.4 billion people. YouTube views for matches were sitting in the 30,000 to 50,000 range. This is a tournament with players from across the world. Social media impressions are not a success metric unless it caters to a new target audience. In this ecosystem, it does not mean success.

Read More: From Telegram to Instagram: Indian Hockey Still Has a Visibility Problem

The HIL is Indian hockey’s flagship competition. It should be the clearest demonstration of what the federation can build commercially and administratively. Instead it raises questions that the federation has not answered publicly. This is what happens when there are no KPIs, no accountability framework, and no one measuring outcomes against targets. Brownie points replace real metrics. Activity replaces results.

When the Courts Have to Step In

On April 20, 2026, the Delhi High Court delivered its judgment in CONT.CAS(C) 1119/2025. Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav found Hockey India and its Secretary General Bhola Nath Singh guilty of civil contempt of court.

The case connects to W.P.(C) 613/2025, a writ petition challenging whether Singh is even eligible to hold office under the tenure and age restrictions of the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011. That eligibility case is still pending. What the contempt ruling addressed was something far simpler. The court had issued an interim direction: provide meeting links to an elected Vice President so they could attend Hockey India meetings. A basic administrative instruction.

It was ignored. Not once. Twice.

The court found the disobedience to be conscious, concerted, deliberate, and wilful. An apology was eventually filed, approximately 250 days after the original direction. The court noted it lacked genuine remorse. Sentencing is scheduled for May 4, 2026.

Bhola Nath Singh is named here because the court named him. Not for any other reason. The point is not personal. The point is what this sequence reveals about the system. A court order was issued. It was ignored twice. An apology came 250 days later. The accountability that should have existed inside the federation was so absent that a court had to enforce a basic governance instruction. And even then, it did not come voluntarily.

The Sports Code

The Sports Code exists to prevent exactly this. It mandates tenure limits, age restrictions, athlete representation, transparency standards. The framework is there. What is missing is the will to enforce it from the inside. When that will does not exist, courts end up doing the job that governance should be doing. Nine cases filed against Hockey India in Delhi High Court in 2025 alone. Legal and professional fees of Rs 3.23 crore in FY 2023-24 and Rs 1.30 crore in FY 2024-25. Is this the right use of federations funds?

The Questions Nobody Is Asking Hockey India

Indian hockey on the field is in a good place. The results are real. The talent pipeline is real. None of that is in question.

But at some point, Indian hockey needs to stop and ask some basic questions. What is the actual role of a national sports federation? Is it to conduct elections, organise tournaments, and issue press releases about social media impressions? Or is it to grow the sport, build commercial independence, develop the next generation, and be genuinely accountable to its members?

What does governance actually mean here? Does it mean one role holding all operational power with no board setting goals and no framework measuring outcomes? Or does it mean published targets, annual accountability, and a structure that separates power from accountability?

What are elections for? To decide which group controls the federation? Or to give Indian hockey a leadership with a vision, a mandate, and the professional capability to deliver on it?

These are not complicated questions. Every successful hockey federation in the world has already answered them. The answers are sitting in their annual plans, their AGM minutes, their strategic documents. All of it is public. All of it is available.

The only question left is whether Indian hockey is willing to ask.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are those of the author. References: Delhi High Court judgment CONT.CAS(C) 1119/2025 dated April 20, 2026. Delhi High Court case records for Hockey India, 2025. KNHB Annual Plan 2026. Hockey Australia Strategic Plan 2025. England Hockey Annual Report 2024-25 and AGM Minutes March 2025. Hockey India Annual Report 2024-25 and 15th Congress Meeting Minutes July 2025.

An Appeal

Social media algorithms decide what you see and when you see it. Somewhere in that noise, this kind of writing gets buried. If Indian hockey governance matters to you, subscribing on Substack is the easiest way to support the work. Every piece lands directly in your mailbox.

<p>The post The Federation Is Not the Dressing Room, Part 2: What Hockey India Own Documents Reveal first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

Hockey India’s current president Dilip Tirkey, a former India captain with 412 international caps and one of India’s finest defenders of his generation, is the president of Hockey India. He brings legitimacy, a clean image, and genuine love for the sport. What he has not brought, at least not visibly, is the kind of administrative and commercial capability that the federation actually needs.

Compare his tenure to that of Narinder Batra. Batra had serious controversies. The IOC eventually banned him. But whatever Batra’s failings as a person, he transformed what Hockey India was in the world. He silenced the retired-player commentary that had dogged Indian hockey for years, the kind where former stars would publicly second-guess every selection and every tour.

Under his watch Hockey India’s political standing in world hockey rose sharply. He became FIH president. India had a seat at the table in global hockey decisions in a way it had never had before. Batra understood how to work a system, how to build influence, how to make Hockey India a name that mattered in global sport. That is a specific skill and it has nothing to do with how many goals you scored.

A great player and a great administrator are two entirely different people. Confusing the two is a governance failure, not a compliment.

The Hockey India League Problem

The Hockey India League is the most visible test of the current administration’s capability. Bringing the league back after years away deserved every bit of celebration it got. The HIL in its original avatar was genuinely exciting and helped build a generation of Indian hockey fans. But bringing something back and building something sustainable are two very different things.

The questions that any competent sports administrator would ask from day one are: what does this league cost per season, what does it earn, what is the broadcast deal worth at the federation level, what is the franchise model and does it create self-sustaining stakeholders, and what does the five year vision look like? This is not a complicated question. They are basic business questions. And from everything that has been visible publicly, Hockey India has not answered them in any meaningful way.

Hockey India League 2.0 runs more on enthusiasm and government support rather than commercial discipline. It feels like the federation was more interested in the optics of bringing the league back than in understanding why it failed the first time.

Hockey India, like most Indian sports federations, remains heavily dependent on government funding. The Sports Authority of India, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, state governments like Odisha that have invested heavily in the sport. Private revenue, the kind that makes a federation genuinely independent and sustainable, has not grown the way it should have under the current leadership. Running a federation is ultimately a business. And a business requires revenue that does not come from government handouts.

The Real Power and the Real Problem

There is another dimension to this that rarely gets discussed openly. In most federations, the president is not actually the person running day to day operations. The secretary general is. And when a federation has a ceremonial president who brings a famous name but limited administrative experience, the real power shifts entirely to the secretary general and the professional staff. This is not unique to Hockey India. The BCCI has operated similarly for years, with presidents serving largely ceremonial roles while the operational machinery runs through the secretary and the professional layer.

The problem is not that this structure exists. The problem is when the administrative layer running things is not accountable in the way it should be. When a senior Hockey India official publicly defends a coaching decision by citing his own background in a completely different sport as his qualification, that is not a governance structure working well. That is a governance structure that does not understand the difference between process and results. The federation’s job is to create conditions where the right people are in the right roles, coaches are appointed on merit, and decisions are made based on evidence. When administrative ego starts driving technical decisions, players and coaches pay the price.

What the Best Federations Actually Do

Look at the federations running the most successful hockey programmes in the world. The Netherlands, Australia, Belgium. In each case, former players are present in the system, but in technical roles. High performance directors, coaching pathway heads, selection committee members, athlete welfare advisors. Their experience is used where it is actually relevant: understanding what a player needs, what a training environment should look like, what it means to perform under pressure.

Professional sports administrators run the commercial and administrative machinery in each of these federations. The KNHB in the Netherlands is led by president Erik Klein Nagelvoort, a former international umpire and long-time partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers who owns a data marketing company. Hockey Australia’s CEO David Pryles came from Softball Australia, appointed specifically because the federation wanted someone with a proven commercial background. These are deliberate choices. People with backgrounds in sports business, broadcast negotiation, stakeholder management, financial planning. Not people who earned the role because of what they did on the pitch.

Belgium’s remarkable rise as a hockey nation is instructive here. It was not driven by a former Red Lion sitting in an administrative chair. It was driven by systematic investment in professional coaching structures, data analytics, and long term planning. That is an institutional capability, not a playing credential.

The National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, already mandates athlete representation on executive committees. That is the right structure. Athlete voice in the room matters. Players should have a seat at the table, input on selection philosophy, player welfare policies, and development pathways. But athlete voice in the room is very different from athlete at the head of the table by default, without the skills the role actually demands.

Read More: From Telegram to Instagram: Indian Hockey Still Has a Visibility Problem

Right Person, Right Role

This is not an argument against former players in administration. It is an argument for putting the right people in the right roles. A former player who has also built genuine administrative and commercial skills is exactly the kind of person you want running a federation. But the playing career alone is not the qualification. It has never been the qualification.

Hockey in India today is standing at an important juncture. The World Cup is coming. The Asian Games follow. LA 2028 is on the horizon. The HIL needs to become financially self-sufficient or it will remain a vanity project. The women’s team is rebuilding. The men’s team is trying to rediscover consistent form. All of this requires a federation that is run with commercial discipline, strategic clarity, and genuine accountability. And right now, that is exactly what is missing.

A great player does not automatically become a great administrator. The skills are almost entirely non-overlapping. What Indian hockey needs at the helm of its federation is not the most decorated name in the room. It is the most capable one.

The question of whether Hockey India currently has that capability, and what the federation’s own documents reveal about how it is actually being run, is something we will look at in detail in Part 2.

An Appeal

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<p>The post The Federation Is Not the Dressing Room: Why Hockey India Needs Professional Administration first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

The Indian women’s team just concluded a four-match official Test series against Argentina, the world’s second ranked side. Argentina won the first two games. India, however, won the third. The fourth ended goalless and India won the shootout 3-2. Overall, a decent series and useful preparation ahead of the World Cup later this year. And yet, most Indian hockey fans found out about all of it from one Instagram post. Because that is all there was. No broadcast, no live stream, no match clips, no training videos. In other words, five days of official international hockey against one of the best sides in the world, and the only thing fans could access was a scoreline.

Importantly, this is not a new problem. It is not specific to this tour. In fact, it is how hockey has operated for decades. As a result, it is one of the biggest reasons the sport keeps struggling to grow.

Hockey’s oldest problem

The first question Indian hockey fans ask whenever a tournament is announced is not who is playing or what the stakes are. It is always the same question. Will it be broadcast? Will it be streamed? Fans have been asking this question for forty or fifty years. Unfortunately, the answer has been unreliable for just as long.

For example, domestic tournaments in India, official competitions with ranking implications and national selection consequences, are on Hockey India’s YouTube channel. That is the ceiling for domestic coverage. There is no television deal, no major platform, and minimal reach. Furthermore, the Hockey India League, India’s flagship domestic tournament with international players, was getting an average of 7000 views on YouTube during some games. In a country of 1.4 billion people, that is not a viewership problem. That is a distribution failure.

Similarly, the European Hockey League recently concluded. Unless you are inside the European hockey ecosystem, you could not watch it. A fan who wanted to pay for access found it priced in Euros, thousands of rupees for a few games. In other words, hockey is turning away willing, paying customers and then wondering why the sport does not grow.

Read More: The Mystery of Hockey: Massive Fandom, Stagnant Revenue

Consequently, hockey globally lives in silos. Indian fans cannot access European hockey. European fans have no awareness of Asian hockey. Every federation operates in its own ecosystem. The result is a sport that is fragmented when it should be unified, invisible when it should be growing.

The Argentina tour is the latest example

The India women’s tour of Argentina is a precise illustration of this problem. A 23-member squad flew from Bengaluru to Buenos Aires, one of the longest journeys an Indian sports team can make. Captain Salima Tete could not travel due to illness. As a result, younger players stepped up. Coach Sjoerd Marijne said he wanted to use the tour to play different combinations and see individual and team performances against the number two ranked side in the world.

Showcase themselves. See performances. Those were the coach’s words. And yet, the only evidence that any of it happened is one Instagram post with a scoreline.

Moreover, sending a squad that far involves significant cost. Flights, accommodation, support staff, logistics. That cost, however, creates an opportunity. India vs Argentina, world number 9 vs world number 2, official international hockey. That is content worth having. A broadcast, even a basic one, converts that investment into something fans can see, something that builds the audience hockey needs. Without it, the investment produces nothing beyond the result on a scorecard.

To put it in context, FIH itself acknowledged a few years ago that international travel had become too expensive. That is exactly why they restructured the Pro League from a home and away system to mini tournaments, bringing teams together in one place rather than flying squads back and forth across the world. The commercial logic was simple. If the return does not justify the cost, change the model. Similarly, the Argentina tour is asking the same question differently. If you are spending money to go somewhere, make it count.

Fans were there. The content was not.

When India plays Argentina in official Test matches, fans notice. Social media fills up with people asking for scores, tagging Hockey India, looking for updates. That organic interest is free marketing. Fans are already engaged, already searching, already willing to watch. All they need is something to watch.

For instance, a live stream converts that curiosity into a viewing habit. A match clip gives fans something to share. A training video builds connection between the team and its supporters. None of this requires a television deal or a production budget. A phone, a YouTube account, and a decision to press record. That’s it, nothing else. Filmmakers shoot movies on iPhones today, why can’t we do the same for sports events?

Instead, fans who went looking for content from the Argentina tour found nothing. Not a goal clip. Not a post match reaction from captain Navneet Kaur or other players. Neither a moment from any of the younger players who stepped up in Salima Tete’s absence. Ultimately, five days of international hockey and the only thing published was a final score.

The World Cup is four months away

This tour was World Cup preparation. Marijne said so. And the World Cup will be broadcast globally. Therefore, fans across India and across the world will be watching.

But broadcast momentum matters. Fans who have followed the team through its preparation, who have seen the combinations being tried, who know which younger players are pushing for a place, those fans arrive at the tournament already invested. On the other hand, a build-up with no visibility produces a fanbase that tunes in cold. Hockey cannot afford cold audiences at a World Cup or on any other day.

What needs to change

The ask is not complicated. If you are sending a squad abroad for official Test matches, make those matches visible. Not necessarily on television. Not on a paid platform. Simply go live on YouTube. Post match clips on Instagram. Share a training video. Show fans that something is happening and give them a reason to follow.

Above all, visibility is not a nice to have. It is the foundation on which sponsorship, broadcast deals, grassroots growth and long term sustainability are built. A sport that cannot be watched cannot grow. And a sport that does not grow will always be chasing money instead of attracting it.

The World Cup is coming. India vs Argentina, official Test matches, world number 9 vs world number 2, was exactly the kind of series that builds excitement for what is ahead. Fans wanted to watch. The content existed. Someone just needed to share it.

<p>The post From Telegram to Instagram: Indian Hockey Still Has a Visibility Problem first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>

Coach Craig Fulton has been clear. One squad, both tournaments, no discussion. The women’s team coach Sjoerd Marijne has the same view. But the Ministry is sticking to their guns about sending two teams.

But before getting into that, here is the basic calendar reality. The World Cup runs from August 15 to 30 in Belgium and the Netherlands. The Asian Games follows from September 19 to October 4 in Japan. That is a 20-day gap at best. Now, with that context, let us get to the real question.

The Ministry has a point. But only up to a point.

The Ministry’s concern is not coming from nowhere. The government has been serious about multi-sport events for a while now. India is hosting the 2030 Commonwealth Games and the government has placed a bid to host the 2036 Olympics. Performing well at the Asian Games fits into that larger picture.

And if you want to understand why the Ministry is almost paranoid about Olympic qualification, go back to 2008. India failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time ever. It shook Indian hockey completely. Hockey India was born out of that mess.

So yes, there is a reason behind what they are doing. But their logic falls apart the moment you look at who India is actually playing at the Asian Games.

The competition at the Asian Games

India is ranked 8th in the world. The next Asian team in FIH rankings is Pakistan, 13th. Malaysia are placed 15th while Japan are 16th. Korea have dropped all the way to 21st. This is the competition India is supposedly so worried about that they need to send their best players.

India’s performance against Asian teams has been great over the last decade. Asian Games gold in 2014, bronze in 2018, gold again at the Hangzhou Asian Games, which was originally scheduled for 2022 but played in 2023 due to Covid, where they beat Singapore 16-1 and Pakistan 10-2 in the group stage and Japan 5-1 in the final. Asian Champions Trophy wins in 2011, 2016, 2018, 2023 and 2024. Asia Cup wins in 2017 and 2025.

Yes, 2018 was a problem. Malaysia knocked India out in the semi-final and India had to take the bronze. But here is what people forget about 2018. India went there with a full-strength squad as defending champions and still lost to Malaysia. So if the argument is that the Asian Games is risky without the A team, then 2018 actually tells you the opposite. A full-strength India can also slip up. At that point it is about performance and confidence, not who you are playing against.

Pakistan, Japan and Malaysia are all going to the World Cup and the Asian Games. Nobody is talking about any of these federations splitting their squads. Givemehockey.com has reached out to the Malaysian, Japanese and Pakistani hockey federations on this specific question and is waiting for their response. But based on what is publicly available, none of them are planning two separate teams. So India sends a B team to the World Cup while everyone else turns up with their best players. How does that make sense?

And even if India were to miss direct Olympic qualification through the Asian Games, the road to the Olympics does not end. You can qualify through the Pro League. You have Olympic qualifying tournaments available. The Indian women’s team showed not long ago that qualification through alternate routes is very much possible. Missing the Asian Games gold is not the end of the world. But sending a weakened team to the World Cup and getting embarrassed? That has a different kind of cost.

Does India actually have a B team? No.

This is the real question. And the honest answer is no.

Let us go position by position.

Goalkeeping is the one area of genuine depth. Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Suraj Karkera, Mohith and Pawan have all been in and around the squad. India has options here and this is the one position where the two-team argument holds up.

On defence, India does have a reasonable number of players. Jarmanpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Sanjay, Sumit, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Varun Kumar, Yashdeep Siwach and Amandeep Lakra have all been part of squads in recent times. The numbers are there. But the quality of defending, even in the Pro League, has not been consistently convincing. Sending a second-string defence to a World Cup is a serious risk.

For penalty corners, the options beyond Harmanpreet Singh are Jugraj Singh, Amit Rohidas, Sanjay, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Varun Kumar and Amandeep Lakra, who had a decent Hockey India League season. But none of them have come close to Harmanpreet’s level. Every time an alternative drag flicker has been tried, the results have not been convincing enough to challenge Harmanpreet’s place. So if he goes to the Asian Games, who is leading the PC attack at the World Cup? That is not a hypothetical risk. That is a guaranteed weakness going into the biggest tournament in hockey.

Read More: Abhishek, who shoots before other think

In midfield, India has Vivek Sagar Prasad, Nilakanta Sharma, Raj Kumar Pal, Moirangthem Rabichandra Singh, Rajinder Singh, Vishnu Kant Singh and Mohammed Raheel Mouseen all available. On paper, that looks like depth. But here is the problem. Even with Hardik Singh in the squad, India’s midfield has been quite ordinary of late. The Pro League performances have been a concern. If you rest Hardik and ask these players to run the show against England, Pakistan or Australia at a World Cup, that is a completely different ask. These are good players. They are not Hardik Singh.

For forwards, Mandeep Singh is the most experienced option beyond the first-choice pair. Abhishek and Sukhjeet are the key goal threats and everyone knows it. Dilpreet Singh, Araijeet Singh Hundal, Aditya Arjun Lalage, Angad Bir Singh and others have been part of squads and played supporting roles. But they have not led the Indian attack. Araijeet Singh Hundal has scored three international goals. Uttam Singh has two. These are players still finding their footing at senior level, not players you build a World Cup campaign around.

So if you rest Abhishek and Sukhjeet for the Asian Games and ask this group to carry the World Cup attack, India will struggle. And that does not just affect the result. It puts Craig Fulton’s credibility directly on the line. More than that, it tells the world exactly how seriously India takes the World Cup. Not very, apparently.

FIH needs India. And they know it.

Here is something that does not get talked about enough. FIH depends heavily on India when it comes to revenue. They have bent over backwards in the past to make sure India is part of big tournaments. Sending a B team to the World Cup hurts FIH commercially at a time when they are not exactly flush. FIH will not be happy about this and their unhappiness tends to show up in ways that matter to Indian hockey eventually.

The real issue: does the Ministry trust their own coach?

This is the question nobody is asking out loud. The Ministry is paying Craig Fulton’s salary. SAI is funding this entire programme. And when Fulton says one squad, I will manage it, the Ministry overrules him. That is not a scheduling debate. That is the Ministry saying we do not trust you.

You are either backing your coach or you are not. There is no middle ground here.

Fulton said something back in early 2025 that is worth going back to. He said B game won’t cut it at a World Cup. Coach was not talking about tactics. He was talking about the level of commitment and preparation that a World Cup demands from every single player. He saw this calendar coming and he was already warning people.

And while we are on this topic, let us talk about what winning 16-0 against Uzbekistan or 16-1 against Singapore actually does for Indian hockey. The answer is nothing. It does not test your defence. It does not sharpen your penalty corners under pressure. Neither it tells you whether Jugraj Singh can hold his nerve when India needs a goal in a knockout match. All it does is make a good headline. If India genuinely cannot back themselves to beat a struggling Malaysia or Japan with even a slightly rotated squad, that is a much bigger problem than the calendar. That problem is called confidence. And it lives inside the team, not in the opposition.

What Fulton should actually do

Keep the core the same. Harmanpreet, Hardik, Abhishek, Sukhjeet, Manpreet, Mandeep, Jarmanpreet. These players stay in both squads. Change the players around them based on fitness and workload. The rest of the squad already know each other from months of training camps. The wavelength between them will not be an issue.

Also, acting like 20 days between tournaments is some kind of impossible ask is absurd. The Hockey India League just ran for nearly a month. Players were competing back-to-back throughout. These are professional athletes. They train for such scenarios. Twenty days is a rest, not a crisis.

There is also a scenario the Ministry has not thought through. What if India goes out of the World Cup in the group stage or the quarters? Then the same players have even more time to rest before the Asian Games. The exhaustion scenario only happens if India goes deep. And if India goes deep into the World Cup, that is the best possible thing that could happen for Indian hockey right now, Asian Games or not.

One big squad, 22 to 24 players. Core stays the same. Rotate around them. Go for both tournaments. That is not complicated. It is just good planning.

The bigger picture

India last won the World Cup in 1975. Every fan wants to see India perform at the World Cup, not treat it as a warm-up for a continental tournament they will almost certainly win anyway. Sending a B team to the World Cup is not a strategy. It is a message. It says India is choosing safety over ambition.

And quietly, this whole debate has pointed at something Indian hockey has been avoiding for a while. Despite two seasons of the Hockey India League and serious investment in the programme, India still does not have match-winners beyond the core group that everyone can name off the top of their head. The Under-19 team has done well. But the jump from Under-19 to senior level has always been where India loses players. That conversation needs to happen. But that is another article.

For now, the answer is simple. Trust the coach. Keep the squad together. Send one team to both tournaments.

Fulton knows what he is doing. Let him do it.

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Note: Givemehockey.com has reached out to the Malaysian, Japanese and Pakistani hockey federations regarding their squad plans for this tournament window. This piece will be updated when responses are received.

<p>The post India’s Big Call: Chase World Cup Glory or Secure Olympic Qualification? first appeared on Give Me Hockey.</p>