European hockey wins as Australia reign supreme

“Individual commitment to a group effort that is what makes a team work, a society work and a civilization work”, says Vince Lambardi.

Hockey, like football, is essentially a team game. Team game’s foremost pre-requisite is the team spirit  or group effort and team spirit is surely a blend of inseparable cohesion, flawless coordination and above all mutual understanding among players, making a group effort work like a single unit, ultimately focusing this group efforts to achieve their goals.
 
And most expectedly, the Australian hockey team has best exemplified the above attributes, in the Men’s hockey world cup Championship, in no uncertain terms. They went on to display the team spirit and hockey playing skills at best throughout the tournament.
 
Australian domination over their indomitable arch- rivals and defending champions, Germans, was in fact a victory of European hockey. (Australia also plays European Hockey). In a hotly contested  and defense packed final match, the formidable Australians, amid oscillating fortunes, exhibited the incredible team work, making raids after raids into rival citadel. They did it with blistering speed and skillful hockey, tearing apart the defense of the opposite side which culminated in the field goal in the very 6th minutes of the match. But the second half belonged to the defending champions who converted a penalty foul into a goal to level the score.
 
The Australians, then, continued their raids and were awarded a penalty foul which was finally converted into a goal. At this stage, the final match was won and lost. The Australians defended their slender lead valiantly and ultimately captured the world cup title after a gap of 24 years. This was surely a well deserved victory for the Australians.
 
Statistically, the 12th edition of men’s hockey world cup tournament has proved more successful, out-shining the previous world cup tournaments.  In this tournament, 178 goals were scored out of 34 matches (excluding minor classification matches), achieving an average of 5.23 goals per match which surpassed the 1994 world cup percentage of 4.98 goals per match.  The removal of offside rule, awarding of 3 points to the winning side and 1 point to the drawn matches and  unmistaken expertise of converting penalty corners into goals have certainly helped to enhance the higher percentage of goal scoring.
 
Without doubt, the European style of hockey has reigned supreme in the present world cup tournament.  The Australians simply out-classed the Indians and Pakistanis in the League matches convincingly.  Though Indian players matched the skill, speed and strength of the Europeans, they failed to make it to Semi-final grade.  The reasons for the failure of the Indian hockey team are not far to seek.  In my humble opinion, the Indian team made the basic mistake of being heavily dependent on their drag flickers. So did Pakistan. 
 
The scoring of penalty goals through drag flickers has proved counterproductive.  The forwards of the Indian hockey team instead of hitting the ball on the goal post directly, were seen, more often than not, trying to hit the legs of the defenders deliberately which certainly reduced the chances of scoring goals by half, whereas the European teams including Australia, were keen to score field goals directly, and if, in the process of scoring field goals, they were awarded penalty fouls, they tried their best to score goals through penalty corners hits.  Surely, the European percentage of scoring goals (both field as well as penalty corner goals) was far higher than that of the Asians. 
 
The winners and the runners-up of this tournament scored 27 and 24 goals respectively, whereas India scored 13 goals including 3 goals by penalty hits.  This is the difference between the two styles of Hockey.
 
Indian Hockey Team – the former world champions and winners of 8 goal medals in the Olympics – has achieved 8th position in the present Hockey World Cup Tournament. It is   certainly an improvement from the last World Cup, but it is not a satisfactory performance by any means.  Arch rivals Pakistan were most ignominiously placed at the lowest ranks in this tournament.  Evidently, Asian hockey has entered the “Dark Ages”. Yet it is not time to write it off, especially in the wake of super performances dished out by South Korean hockey team. However, the South Koreans turned out to be unlucky as they narrowly missed the semi-final berth and ultimately settled for the 6th place.
 
An old saying ‘Hockey is played by skills’ has not  stood the test of time. Modern hockey is not a mere game of skills. It is also about getting tougher and tougher by every passing international tournament.   Any hockey playing country aspiring to win a major international tournament has to posses the skills of Dhyanchand, the speed of Jamaicans, the strength of the U.S. Boxers,  the stamina of Ethiopian Marathoners and above all, incredible team work of Australians.
 
Besides the playing skills, speed, strengths and stamina are the integral part of any game/sports. “The superior athletic prowess makes superior sportspersons/players” has been proved correct by the Australians in this tournament.
 
The 12th Hockey Cup Tournament has been organized flawlessly amidst tight security in the wake of terror threat. The security presence was conspicuous all through the tournament. By hosting the international sports event, India has convincingly proved its organizational skills. Well done India.