As the Indian women’s hockey team prepares to defend its crown at the Madhya Pradesh Women’s Asian Champions Trophy 2026, chief coach Sjoerd Marijne is focused on building a squad with greater depth, versatility and competitiveness. 

Following a landmark year capped by a historic gold at the Asian Games in Japan, the team’s preparations have centred on improving players’ adaptability across positions and giving emerging talent opportunities to prove themselves. 

Facing the challenge of playing Asia’s top teams once again, Marijne believes the priority remains India’s own development and taking the improvements made in training into a competitive tournament environment.

Here’s what Chief Coach Marijne said in an interview to Hockey India. 

Tell us something about the areas you focused on during the national camp that ends soon and the team heads to Bhopal to defend its Asian Champions Trophy crown?

We are busy creating more depth, which also makes training sessions more competitive. The players are also aware of that. So, they’re giving their best and working really hard. 

An added challenge for this tournament will be the new stadium and a new pitch at the International Sports Complex in Nathu Barkheda, Bhopal. What does it take to counter such acclimatization challenges?  

It’s just an adjustment. We play the whole year on different pitches, and this will be a similar change. The pitch at the Asian Games was very difficult and bumpy. So, we’re not too worried about that. The opponents also have to deal with the same. So, it’s not on our minds. 

You said that you will be testing the players in different positions during this tournament. What’s the idea behind that? 

It’s to create more depth in the squad. We want the players to be able to play in different positions. It becomes helpful if a player gets injured, especially in a tournament like the Olympics, and it’s very helpful for the development of the players.

For instance, Ishika normally plays as a striker and now sometimes plays as a midfielder as well; it’s the same with Rutuja (Dadaso Pisal). So, they have to learn to adapt to playing in other positions and we want to see if this adds something to the game we want to play, to the improvements we want to see in the team.

Plus, there are youngsters like Pooja (Sahoo) who will get a chance, Jyoti Singh for the first time and Mumtaz is back after a long time. I think this is a good platform for all of them to show what they are capable of.

The team has had a very successful year, highlighted by the historic Asian Games gold in Japan. This tournament offers you a similar challenge as the Asian Games, especially from China, whom we beat in the final. How different will this tournament be, considering we will be playing the same set of teams?

You never know what squads these teams bring to the tournament. But the main thing is what I’ve said the whole year, and it will be the same for this tournament: we have to focus on ourselves, what we want to improve after the Asian Games, what we want to do better.

That is where the main focus is for us. And then it doesn’t matter who is the opponent. We have worked on those topics in the camp in Bengaluru, and now it’s time to see how they perform under pressure in a tournament. 

After this tournament, there’ll be a welcome break for the players. But the home season will have one more outing in the form of the FIH Pro League starting early next year. Keeping that in mind, what are the areas you want to see improvement in? 

It all depends on the tournaments they’ll be playing in December and January because I want them to be mentally fresh, physically fresh and rested, but also prepared. Playing against Argentina and Germany in February immediately after the small break following a tournament like Hockey India League is not easy.

It’s always a tough period to come back into the international rhythm because the competition level on the international stage is very, very different. But that’s not only with India, that’s the same with every country. You need time to adapt. So, that will be a big challenge for us: how fast we can get the girls back in that zone. 

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