Indian men's hockey team coach Joaquim Carvalho has been assured by former Aussie hockey ace Ric Charlesworth that his appointment as Technical Director of Indian hockey will not come in the way of his job.
The former Indian Olympian and Asia Cup-winning coach said Charlesworth called him to say, 'We have the same wavelength. I will not interfere with your coaching methods and I do not want to take away whatever good you have done with the Indian team.'
"Ric has confirmed that he will not interfere with our preparation for the Beijing Olympics and the qualifier prior to the Games," Carvalho said.
"It will also be difficult for Ric to involve in coaching the team at such a short notice and his appointment is not considered by me as any worry," he added.
Charlesworth, who guided the Australian women's hockey team to two Olympic gold medals and won 227 hockey caps himself for Australia, turned down a chance to become England's new National Academy director to take up the job of development of the men's, women's and junior teams in preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Carvalho, however, made it clear that it will not be binding on his coaching team to accept Charlesworth's advice.
"He (Charlesworth) has his stature as a coach and administrator. As far as I am concerned, my coaching staff will remain undisturbed. We have M M Sommaya as our technical director.
"Any inputs by Ric, for the betterment of hockey, will be accepted only after the whole team management discusses those. Our interest (senior team's) has been put down firmly to Ric. We will not accept interference from any quarters," Carvalho said.
"We welcome him in any capacity and, theoretically, we want his inputs and all his plans to better Indian hockey. We have played alongside in the past. He is no stranger to me. We recognise him as a great player of repute," he said.
Carvalho said Charlesworth could be useful to the men's team in arranging practice matches with foreign sides before the Olympic qualifiers next year.
"Ric will not be interfering in my coaching methods and skills of the players. We will decide before accepting his inputs, but we will greatly appreciate his services in arranging couple of matches away from India before the Olympic qualifier as already discussed between us," he said.
Carvalho said Charlesworth is aware about the unpleasant episode Indian hockey went through during German coach Gerhard Rach's stint with the national side.
'What happened prior and after Athens (Olympics) under Gerhard (Rach) was not good. I remember the incidents prior and after the Athens Olympics when he was the coach and its bad effects,' the Aussie is believed to have told Carvalho.
Citing examples of Paul Lissek and Terry Walsh's stints with Malaysia and Roelant Oltmans's association with Pakistan, Carvalho does not back the idea of hiring foreign coaching staff for any national side.
"There was no appreciable improvement in the Malaysian standards and Pakistan winning the World Cup with Oltmans as its coach was not because of the latter since he was given a little leeway in preparing the team," he said.