Hockey Olympic Qualifiers: USA coach to use experience of Chile to tackle crowd pressure in India

Having played against hosts Chile during the Pan-Am Games in Chile, the United States women’s team has gained some experience in tackling partisan crows and are planning to use that experience when they take on hosts India at the Marang Gomke Jaipal Singh Astro Turf Hockey Stadium here on Saturday.

The stadium is expected to be jam-packed for all the matches the Indian team will play and their opponents are wary of the pressure that would create on their players. But USA coach David Passmore said the experience they gained in Chile could come in handy in India.

“Well, we’ll have one fan in the crowd actually! But yeah, we got to play Chile in Chile during the Pan-Am Game. So kind of using that experience in our favour to kind of lean on that. And I think our team is well prepared in a lot of different ways from our preparation to handle a match like that and to handle, you know, the crowd excitement,” said Passmore in his pre-tournament press conference here.

Talking about the experience of playing in the Pan-Am Games, Passmore said it gave them a tremendous benefit. “Yeah, I think playing any major tournament which has an Olympics at the end of it as a, as a as an outcome is, is of real value. I think the other thing, it was the first time the team had truly been together playing a tournament as opposed to the Pro League, which has a slightly different format. And you know you don’t necessarily play in Pro League, you don’t play knockout matches.”

“So, I think it gave us a tremendous benefit to know and understand how to manage a tournament and also to sort of take one game at a time. And also you know different things arise during tournaments that you have to manage, injury, illness, all those kinds of things. And I think we’re far better at doing that now because of that experience. And I generally believe we had a really good tournament at Pan-Am’s and could have come out and not had to be here,” he said.

Asked about the experience of playing against former coach Schopman, team USA co-captain Amanda Colini said five players were part of the team when the former Dutch international was the chief coach when they lost to India in the Olympic qualifier in Bhubaneswar.

“It’s definitely interesting, but she is a familiar face that we love to see out in the hockey world. So I think we’ve all exchanged messages with her already wishing her luck and her the same to us. So it’s exciting to see her, but that does not mean we will show any mercy when we get to that game,” she said.

Co-Captain Amanda said the team is quite motivated for the Olympic Qualifiers. “You need some kind of motivation to go all out there if you take on teams like India and New Zealand. I think that the Olympics is motivation enough. We are all so hungry. It’s been our dream since we were little girls for most of us, so that alone drives us.

“But also we do so much focus on the process of it and finding joy in the process of every day, every training, every match. So that also is a success for us and I think as a team we believe that happy players play better, so finding joy in every moment is motivation as well.”

Coach Passmore said he has a good mix of young and experienced players, adding more importantly for him, the squad has a good culture which underpins their success.

“I think we have a good mix of older players, experienced younger players, and our younger players are quite skilled. And I think regardless of age or experience, I think we have a really good culture which kind of underpins our success and our journey and our path and where we want to go.

“So, I think leaning on those has helped us develop a culture where our older girls can or our younger girls can hold our older girls accountable and vice versa, while also our kind of finding the joy with each other in small moments and the challenges as well,” he added.

Team USA will be hoping to put these experiences gained from playing the Pan-Am Games and the Pro League as the fulcrum on which they hope to mount their challenge against India and New Zealand. How much they can manage to use those gains in practice, only time will tell.