Catalan field hockey players triumph in first ever Hockey India League

Barcelona (CNA).- David Alegre, Quico Cortés and Roger Padrós are three fortunate Catalan field hockey players. Over the last few years, the Indian Hockey Federation has been trying to structure and organise a worldwide event. Finally, the Hero Hockey India League (HIL) was born, in which all three Catalans have been playing. One of them, the goalkeeper Cortés, won the championship with his team, the Ranchi Rhinos. The HIL follows a draft system, like the NBA. While 11 Catalan players were part of the draft, only three of them became HIL players. They have fought with their respective teams to win the league and have already flight back to their European clubs after a short but intense experience.

The HIL is composed of five franchises, each of them disposing of $500,000 to spend during the draft, which took place in December. Alegre was contracted by the Uttar Pradesh Wizards, Cortés by the Ranchi Rhinos and Padrós by the Punjab Warriors.

This story may seem easy to tell now, but the three told CNA that their first days in India were very difficult. “At first, I asked myself what the hell I was doing in a country like India alone but now I’m completely adapted and enjoying the experience”, said Padrós. Alegre pointed out the difficulty but also the challenge of making people from five different countries come together as a human and sporting group: “We needed to be a team, but also a group of friends. I think we became both”.

The adaptation process to the Indian hockey way of working was another obstacle in their race. The training methods were similar because the head coaches had an international standard approach, since they came from other countries such as Australia, South Africa or Holland. Cortés’ coach came from South Africa and was well-experienced in international hockey, so, for him, what proved to be more interesting was “learning about our partners, especially those who we play against during the European or World Championships and during the Olympic Games”.

Indian passion is the most valuable prize

What all three players enjoyed the most was the passion for the game showed by the Indian people. According to Alegre, “in Catalonia field hockey is a minority game, so it is a blessing for us to hear the cheers of 20,000 people in stadiums bigger than some soccer grounds back home”.

This passion is not only found among supporters; the Indian players also take part in the competition show such an attitude. “They play without responsibilities, their goal is to score more than their opponent and defenders do not exist for them”, affirms Padrós. Alegre agrees: “In India the games are broken. One can clearly see that each team has five well-defined strikers and five men who try to do their best defending”.

Cortés thinks that this is an aspect that can help the Indian national team a lot: “Asian players have always been characterised by their killer counterattack, their very high technical level and the chaos in their games. With the HIL, the Federation wants Indian players to acquire structure, control and tactic knowledge. If they reach that, they will be lethal”.

Now Alegre, Cortés and Padrós are returning to their clubs in Europe. Cortés currently plays in the Netherlands, while Alegre and Padrós do so at the Real Club de Polo in Barcelona which lead the Spanish top division. While all agree they prefer Europe because of the food, living conditions and being close to friends and family, they also acknowledge that, as a hockey player, India is a wonderful destination because of the passion everybody feels out there for field hockey.