Sardar Singh opens up about differences with Sjoerd Marijne & David John
Sardar Singh lashed out at Indian coach, Sjoerd Marijne, as he broke his silence over the decision to quit and blamed Hockey India's High Performance Director (HPD), David John, for ending his career. The Indian midfielder had announced his retirement after the Asian Games earlier this year.
Sardar Singh made a long-awaited comeback to the national team as he was included in the Asian Games squad which
Since then, the veteran midfielder has remained mum on the whole issue and has avoided media questions and queries over the surprising decision to back out of the national setup. However, Singh recently spoke about how the presence of Hockey India's
"There were a lot of reasons behind my decision (to retire). After Oltmans was removed as coach, a lot of things happened. John and another foreign coach (Marijne) wanted to try new players. We won the (2017) Asia Cup and I was hoping to continue. But I was dropped without any discussion.
"Then I was sent to the (2018) Sultan Azlan Shah Cup with some junior players, but when I came back, I was ignored again for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Gold Coast. So I started doubting myself at times, started questioning myself, despite being fit," Sardar said in an interview with TOI.
For the record, Sardar said he was scoring as high as 21.4 on the yo-yo test until the last day he was in the Indian national camp. But contrary to that, John had publicly singled out Sardar as ‘slow’.
"I was never fast, my game has never been like that. So I don't know why John said that. I was told that I am playing individual hockey and then John asked me to play as a free man, which I accepted as well," he added.
While Sardar flourished under the tutelage of former coach, Roelant Oltman, things began to go downhill from the point Sjoerd Marijne was chosen as the new coach of the men’s team.
"Every coach has his own methods. We were called to the breakfast and told that there is a list
"You generally change 2-3 players before a tournament, not the seniors who are the core of a team. That pack of 10-12 players should rather be given confidence. If you change players suddenly, and also coaches, it makes things difficult, especially in a team sport," Sardar said.
