PARIS: "It's a bluff thing! Penalties are always a bluff." Indian hockey's resident philosopher was breaking down the art of facing penalties - the psychology, the deception and the trauma. PR Sreejesh, son-of-the-soil hero, effortless celebrity - you should see the Beatlemania kind of love and adulation the expats at the hockey venue here have for him - had just walked off the blindingly blue turf at the historic Stade Yves-du-Manoir.
There was an added strut in his already heavy, padded walk - a kind of large land-sea mammal resplendent in yellow - and the jibes reserved for the hankering media in the mixed zone: "Ah, I was talking, and you left me when the coach came. I saw that, I saw that. Not saying anything now, you guys always do this!"
A little cajoling was what Sreejesh needed. Down one goal despite heavier share of the ball, India held their breath as Maico Casella stepped up to the penalty spot in a crucial phase in the game. "We were a goal down. I knew if it went in, they would get a high, a two-zero lead would put them in a comfort zone, and more difficult for us in the coming games. It was just thinking of how to put pressure on the player," he said when asked what was going through his mind seconds before as Casella shaped up to shoot. Shoot, scoop, whatever, it actually didn't matter to Sreejesh.
A loud slap of the gloves, resounding over the Indian-made din in the stands, the hockey stick resembling a chopstick, useless without the other one, probably made the statement that would deafen the Argentine inner silence and bend his will. It was all his for the taking, he fluffed his lines.
"We prepare for such times," Sreejesh would explain his thinking. "Most of the times they have their own specific area where they always try to push. That's why I gave him a dodge, just to try to give him some sort of doubt in his plan."
It worked. Sreejesh made Casella think he was going one side, but he was dragged away even further because he had already decided to hit to his right. He hit the ball wide, outside.
Had not Sreejesh used his street smarts, it would have been a whole different conversation.
Ask Sreejesh about how lonely a goalkeeper's job is, even in the constant helter-skelter of current day hockey, and his observation perhaps offers an added insight into his coach's comments. "It's not lonely, brother. We are there for them (outfield players) and they are there for us," he laughs.
"But the only time it changes is when you concede a goal. Immediately afterwards, you are alone. You get enough time to think positive or negative. That's the only time when you feel like you're lonely."
