Former India goalkeeper Jude Menezes hopes to take Japan women’s hockey team into the knockouts | Paris Olympics 2024 News – Times of India
Kolkata: Playing for India, Jude Menezes made it to the Olympics only once.
It was Sydney in 2000 where the Indian men’s hockey team failed to make it to the knockouts and finished seventh. He did compete at the World Cup two years later but never took part in the Olympics as a player again.
Twice after that, he did go to the Olympics but as part of the support staff of the New Zealand women’s hockey team. Even then success eluded him as in 2016, they finished fourth and three years back in Tokyo, the team lost to the Netherlands in the quarterfinal and finished eighth.
Now, Menezes has an even more challenging task at hand as the coach of the Japanese women’s hockey team. After taking over the team post Tokyo Olympics he guided them to a couple of titles but the going hasn’t been easy.
Despite the odds though he was able to guide them to the Paris Olympics and it was a huge achievement for the former India goalkeeper. Since then, the team has again struggled but Menezes is rather hopeful of making it to the knockouts.
We are taking one match at a time initially. We are in a tough pool where we got four teams ranked above us but it doesn’t matter. What matters is the performance on the day. And we need to win at least two games to be among the top-four teams and make it to the knockouts, said Menezes ahead of Japan’s opener against Germany on Sunday.
To make sure they are at their best in Paris, Japan played a couple of matches against the Netherlands in Zwolle, Netherlands, and Menezes believes it was one of the preparations that they could have got.
It’s very critical because they are the best team in the world. The pace that they play at is a great learning for us because we usually don’t get the opportunity to play against them. So just giving this exposure to my players was very beneficial because every other team that we play in the Olympics will be lesser than the Dutch, he added.
Besides the matches in Zwolle, they also played a few warm-up games in Paris but he believes the team hasn’t reached its full potential yet and that they can perform even better.
It’s satisfying to see the steady progress. We are still learning, still growing and it’s good to see that we are heading in the right direction. So, the Olympics will be a good test to see where we are, added the Mumbai-born coach.
But I am never satisfied. I am always looking to be better. To a certain extent maybe I am satisfied but I do believe we can do a lot better. So, the quest for improving and the quest for excellence is always ongoing.
Well, they certainly will have to be much better than what they have been so far to make it to the knockouts because, besides Germany, they will be facing off against China, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands in the other group matches.
Not only did they finish fifth in the Nations Cup in June, but they also lost all their matches during a tri-nation Test series in Australia where China was the other competing nation. But Menezes does have the coaching acumen to turn things around and hopefully, he will be able to do that over the next couple of weeks.
