India’s bronze-medal winning men’s hockey team had a plan for every opponent, thanks to coach Craig Fulton

There have been times over the past year when it felt coach Craig Fulton had a wide range of foodstuff to whip up a nice meal but he opted for just a scrambled egg. Nothing fancy.

For months, the South African gave an impression of doing just that with a team of gifted players. Turning the speedy, skillful Indians who liked heavy-metal hockey into slow machines who were stripped of all the adventure and instinctiveness. They became borderline boring.

Who, except Fulton and his team, knew he was saving his best dish for the big Parisian feast? He dropped a few hints along the way.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐳𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚⁣!

Consecutive bronze medals for team India, we defeat Spain in the Bronze Medal match.

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In Rourkela during the FIH Pro League earlier this year, Fulton had said how he was holding the team’s strings, ‘holding it longer and little longer before releasing them at the right time’. At the time, it felt like one of those theoretical things coaches like talking about. But, as the Paris Olympics bronze medal — the second successive podium finish after 40 years of exile — showed, Fulton was a man with a plan.

Throughout this campaign, India changed their colours more than a chameleon, showing a different side to themselves every time they stepped on the field of the fabled Stade Yves du Manoir.

Mystery-box challenge

India played as if every match was a mystery box challenge for their opponents.

After an iffy start, they revealed their first card against Belgium by raising the intensity but also never losing their defensive shape, aware of the threats the structurally strong, unforgiving dethroned Olympic champions possessed.

Back-to-back medal victories secured by the Indian Hockey team in the Olympics! 🥉😍

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The next morning, they turned up as a different unit, fighting fire with fire as unexpectedly, Fulton liberated his players. The five games in Australia earlier this year, and the dozens before that, had given him a sense that only defending wouldn’t cut it against a side that consistently spanked India.

From irresistible attacking against Australia, they went to ultra-defensive against Britain, producing a performance for the ages. Those who have seen India would know that, until not so long ago, an Indian defence with even 22 bodies in front of goal would make a mistake and allow a goal.

Here, with one player less — there was a point at the start of the fourth quarter when two Indians were suspended — India showcased a defensive masterclass. They defended deep, the last line was within a handshake distance of goalkeeper Sreejesh, and bravely stopped Britain from having clear-cut shots at goal.

Then came Germany, who were rattled by India’s early onslaught. In hindsight, India should have wrapped up the game in the first half itself. But the high press they employed — India under Fulton had largely played a half-court press — was another facet to this team.

It’s been rare to see an Indian team in the past that has had this level of tactical flexibility and adaptability. The two ingredients that have held back Indian hockey — which knew only one way to play, attack — for decades.

When Fulton took over from Graham Reid, the Australian who masterminded India’s return to the Olympic podium after four decades, last year, he did two things.

The first was to introduce different options for playing hockey, with varying styles for each opposition. He had been working on it for a year. This was to try and bring an element of unpredictability to the team.

INDIA WIN THE BRONZE MEDAL IN HOCKEY AT #Paris2024! 🏑 🥉

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The earlier Indian teams were unpredictable, too; in that, they were erratic and one never knew which side of the bed they would wake up on. Fulton taught the players how to change the patterns of play, and seamlessly switch tactics mid-game.

He used all the matches in the last year — except the Asian Games — to get the team used to his different ways, study the opponents they played and draw a plan of how to face them in Paris.

Sports psychologist Paddy Upton, who is in Fulton’s backroom staff, told The Indian Express: “We’ve been on a very deliberate, conscious learning journey. Always, literally every game we play, every meeting we’ve had in the last year, we’ve been talking about this as preparing us for the Olympic moment.”

The South African mind gave an example of how India defeated Australia for the first time in the Olympics after 52 years. When the team travelled Down Under in April, they lost the series 5-0. But Fulton wasn’t concerned about the result, according to Upton.

“For us, it wasn’t so much about winning those games or beating Australia in Australia. It was understanding Australia’s game, understanding them better, better understanding their mindset, understanding their psyche, and creating plans that when we meet Australia when it really counts, we have it enough to be able to counter them and hit them,” Upton said.

The second big Fulton intervention wasn’t directly by himself, but it was his persistence to get Upton on board.

Modern sport is also psychological warfare, with mental strength accounting for as much as, if not more, than technical abilities. The hockey team, where insecurities run deep, has for decades lagged on this front.

In his exit interview, former coach Reid highlighted the importance of having a full-time mental conditioning coach for them to take the next step. Fulton had requested Upton to join him in previous assignments with the Irish and Belgian national teams. Both times, Upton rejected it. But the prospect of returning to India — Upton was part of Gary Kirsten’s backroom staff when India won the 2011 Cricket World Cup — appealed to him.

His unique methods and pep talks have had an instant impact on the players, who look more assured and less likely to crumble in pressure situations.

The bronze, although a reminder that there is still a lot to improve, is an affirmation that India has claimed a permanent seat in the big boys’ club of world hockey — coach Fulton’s chef’s kiss moment.

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