Brasa, Batra in selection spat

Aug 27, 2010 |

Correspondent

Tags:

hockey mess

New Delhi, Aug. 27: The controversy over team selection in Indian hockey took an ugly turn on Friday with chief coach Jose Brasa blaming the authorities for “constantly interfering,” leading to poor results.

Hockey India, in turn, lashed out at Brasa, saying the Spaniard was trying to paint himself as a martyr to hide his shortcomings.

“Brasa knows his contract won’t be renewed after the Asian Games. He has failed to deliver, and hence this drama. Nothing is exceptional about him,” said HI secretary Narinder Batra.

Brasa, it is learnt, has been pressing for the inclusion of striker Prabhjot Singh for the Commonwealth Games, leading to the fallout.

In several e-mails to the Sports Authority of India and Hockey India, Brasa had asked for Prabhjot’s inclusion in the CWG squad, but to no avail.

“I would like to let you know that I want Mr Prabhjot Singh to be called to join the camp at Balewadi, as soon as possible. I kindly ask you do the needful to get Prabhjot Singh back in the camp,” Brasa wrote to Batra on August 20.

He followed it up with another letter, mentioning that the entire coaching staff was in favour of retaining Prabhjot.

This is not the first time that the Spaniard has talked about the “bad treatment” meted out to him. In an interview to this paper two months ago, Brasa had blamed the national selectors of walking out on him during a team selection meeting when he voiced his concern over the players selected for the Europe tour.

"The European teams will be one of the biggest test and we need to field our best XI. Players like Adrian

D’Souza, Arjun Halappa, V.S. Vinaya and Vikram Pillay are sitting at home, and I do not understand it,"

Brasa had said then.
"Sadly, the selectors did not want to hear any arguments."
It is clear that the 58-year old has not enjoyed a free hand since his appointment in June last year. While
coaches world over pick and chose their preliminary and final squads, Brasa has been a mere puppet in
Hockey India’s hands.
The players have supported Brasa, saying the Spaniard was better than the other coaches in the country.
Said a member of the national team, "Brasa may not be the best when compared to the top European
coaches, but he is way better than each and every coach that we have in this country. He has at least taught
us something, unlike the previous coaches."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/30114" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-63bba4bf0f6ef7d380ab59fe91056d0a" value="form-63bba4bf0f6ef7d380ab59fe91056d0a" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="81754658" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>