‘We’ve skill to beat anyone’

On Friday, things were different though as the Spanish coach of the Indian team took it upon himself to present his views to the media.

Brasa has not been long enough with the team to make a massive difference to its fortunes but the Spaniard felt the players have adapted well to the changes and are ready to challenge the best in front of the home fans at the Major Dhyanchand National Stadium.

“I know that everyone wants to predict the future but it’s not possible. No one knows who is going to win. The best of teams can lose to a weak team. But we are here to fight it out and do our best. We have the skill to beat anyone. I can’t say in which position we’ll finish but we want to finish at the best possible spot,” Brasa said at a media interaction two days ahead of the start of the tournament.

Explaining the changes he has effected since taking over last year, the Spaniard said fitness was one of the key areas he worked on. “We have done a lot of work on fitness and the players are much fitter now. David Perez (the physical trainer) has done a good job with the players and you will see a much fitter team in action.

“Tactically too, we have changed a few things. We switched over to man-to-man marking and the players are doing quite well in that. Our attacking system too is completely different; we use the width of the pitch more, creating opportunities through the flanks,” said the 59-year-old FIH Master Coach.

India start the World Cup with a match against Pakistan on Sunday. The match has been billed as the clash of the championship but Brasa said it was important to view it as just another game.

“The match against Pakistan in Salta (at the Champions Challenge in December) was my first experience of that kind. Our players could not control the emotional part then. They got excited quickly and went out too early to attack. It won’t happen here. Pakistan also were lucky in that they got an easy goal very early in the game. If you look at the video of that match (won by Paksitan 6-3) you can see that we had more chances but failed to convert them. Hopefully, we will have the same number of chances with better conversion here,” Brasa said.

India played two practice matches here, against Argentina and the Netherlands, winning both by 2-1 margins. But the penalty corner conversion remained a worry with the team failing to convert any of the three chances they forced against the Dutchmen on Friday.

Brasa, though, remained unflustered. “We have three players who can strike off penalty corners (Sandeep Singh, Dhananjay Mahadik and Diwakar Ram) but we didn’t use our best weapon yesterday. Sandeep is the best drag-flicker in the world and he’ll be our key during short corners,” said Brasa before hurrying away. Time for talking was over; it’s all about action now.