It's a massive year for Indian hockey, with both the men's and women's teams set to play in two major tournaments -- the World Cup and the Asian Games. The women's team head coach Sjoerd Marijne, in his second stint, has been with the team since early this year. His immediate task was to help India qualify for the World Cup, which he did. And then he started putting in work on major areas that needed improvement.
Before embarking on a friendly tour to Australia and then the FIH Women's Nations Cup in New Zealand, which starts on Monday, Marijne spoke to ESPN extensively on long-term issues that plagued the team and how he's trying to improve them.
The focus on fitness
Since taking over the reins in February this year, Marijne has had to build the fitness -- both endurance and match fitness -- of his squad from scratch. When Marijne took over, he said 14 players were injured. But the World Cup qualifiers in February meant that it was a challenging period to try and find a balance between preparing tactically for that tournament and giving them enough rest.
While Marijne and his staff managed that period safely, the period between February and now has been spent in camps, with the tours to Argentina and Australia as well.
In Australia, they played four closely contested games. They lost the opening game 1-2 but came back to win the next one in the shootout and defeated their opponents 2-0 in the third game. The final match was a 2-3 loss. The performances and the results show that the team is on the up.
The improvement has come through a clear vision -- first, the players needed to get fit, and then, they would be capable of executing Marijne's vision on the field.
Wayne Lombard and his team of strength and conditioning coaches have personalised programmes to ensure that recovery is never compromised. And that recovery is more important during camps than in tournaments, Marijne says, because his camps are more demanding than a tournament would be.
"If we feel today, it's better that a player does recovery, then we don't give her a stick. And she does recovery. And That's what I mean with the individual approach," Marijne said.
As it stands, given the constraints he's had, Marijne's happy with how the team has progressed, in terms of playing the way he wants them to play.
"I am not a patient guy," Marijne said. "I always want to be further, but if we would be further already, we'd have a lot more injuries."
Those 14 injuries that existed when he came into the set-up have now been reduced to two. That's something of a positive, even if the two injured players at the moment are important ones in Sangita Kumari and Vaishnavi Vittal Phalke, both of whom are ruled out for an extended period of time with anterior cruciate ligament tears.
Pressing and chance conversion are also important
Marijne said that pressing was only one of many things that he wants the team to improve. He wanted his team to win more balls higher up the field, to create more space in attack and to create more circle entries.
What they do with the ball after those circle entries has come under sharp focus too, and of course it hasn't missed Marijne's judgement as well, that India are a poor side at converting chances, be it from field goals or penalty corners.
At the World Cup qualifiers, for example, India converted six out of the 42 penalty corners that they earned, a sorry 14.2% conversion rate. Their shots to goals conversion rate from open play was similar too. So, what can a coach do in those scenarios? Can you really train a player into becoming a better finisher?
Marijne says that one can coach a player to be in the correct positions at the correct times. And from there on, it is about repeatability, and how the players practice different techniques enough to make the split-second decision of what technique to use when.
Captain Salima Tete added that India's forwards, herself included, are a bit too rushed inside the circle. "We don't realise sometimes the time we have inside the circle," she said. "It's the little things that make a big difference. So if I can take a touch in the circle to give me a better position, then I shouldn't take a first-time shot from a worse position. Those are things that we are training hard for," the skipper added.
This is a team whose players often ooze confidence in their ability to create chances, but they are also self-aware that creating those chances means nothing if they don't take them at a better rate.
Winning Nations Cup a priority
The FIH Nations Cup is an important tournament for Marijne and his team, as it presents a path back into the FIH Pro League for next season, a tournament from which India were relegated last year, after a series of poor results under then coach Harendra Singh.
Marijne's objectives for the Nations Cup are clear, he wants India to win that tournament, but he also says that it comes at the perfect time for India to build their performances level before the World Cup and the Asian Games later this year.
"We want to qualify for the Pro League," the Dutchman said. "Playing in those matches, you see Ireland is improving. They have been playing [the Pro League for] a year. So that would be amazing."
India will be in a tough World Cup group alongside China and England, but games like the ones in the tour of Australia, and then the ones against the likes of Japan and USA at the Nations Cup will give them a good idea of where they stand.
India schedule for FIH Nations Cup 2026, New Zealand
June 15: India vs USA at 4:15 a.m. IST
June 16: India vs Japan at 6:30 a.m. IST
June 18: India vs Uruguay at 4:15 a.m IST
June 20: Semifinals.
June 21: Final.