Paris Olympics: India’s ‘God in the goal’ PR Sreejesh keeps the fire burning for hockey gold

PR Sreejesh, the hero of Indian hockey, continues to defy age and expectations, driven by a relentless fire within.

FILE PHOTO: Sreejesh has been the single most consistent presence on the turf in India’s campaign at the Paris Olympics. | Photo Credit: PTI

His name already etched as the man who ended Indian hockey’s Olympic 40-year old medal jinx in six seconds, PR Sreejesh had little to prove after the Tokyo Olympics. But if anyone thought the 36-year old was done, Paris 2024 has proven otherwise.

Even as the Indian men started tentatively, looked shaky at the beginning of the journey before finding momentum that now has re-ignited talks of a ninth gold, Sreejesh has been the single most consistent presence on the turf.

After the quarterfinal win against Great Britain that was akin to a boxer fighting a heavyweight bout with restriction on movement and one hand tied behind, he has been called ‘God in the goal’ and similar epithets, the country suddenly discovering, as it were, a new hero at what have been a fairly subdued Olympics for India.

For the man himself, however, it’s all part of a job that he took on two decades ago and continues to excel in. What keeps him ticking isn’t the adulation, the rewards or even the recognition in the present – it’s the fire that was lit in the past, as a kid; the mocking and disdain a wiry, shy and under-confident kid from Kizhakkambalam village in Kerala who knew nothing but Malayalam faced when he first stepped out. 

“When I first came into the national camp – the humiliation I faced, the rock bottom I hit on and off the turf – all that is like a fire inside that has never allowed me to sleep peacefully. That constant burning is the only thing that has pushed me hard every day, to keep getting better. A player gets satisfied once he achieves something but I think I haven’t got what I really want. I feel if we had only given that one percentage extra, we could have had a different medal. And that’s why I’m here. It’s one last chance for me to to change that colour,” he explains.

So far, he and the team have already gone over and beyond anyone’s expectations. The preparations had been less than ideal, results a mixed bag in the run up to the Games and, after the disappointment of the 2023 World Cup where India crashed out in the first round, questions were asked with Sreejesh in focus – has he slowed down, is he fit enough, can he sustain, is he too old? There are questions still, but they are different now – who after Sreejesh? Why is he retiring? Is the next batch good enough, ready enough?

It’s vindication of the effort he has put in over the years, especially after a series of serious injuries in 2016-2017 that required surgeries and forced him to face the inevitable idea of retirement for the first time. That his competition for the goalkeeper’s slot is from players more than 10 years his junior is of no consequence.

“When you’re competing with someone, you get satisfied when you beat them. But I try to compete with myself, set new challenges and then try to win, to get to the next level. And that is still going on. When I had my injury in 2017 (At the Azlan Shah Cup), there was a big gap, almost eight months, when I was out. Akash Chitke was performing really well at that time, Suraj (Karkera) was doing good and (Krishan) Pathak was getting into the scene.

“But my focus was, ‘OK, these people are doing good. What should I do now?’ And my first thought after the injury was, ‘I want to wear that India jersey once again, just one more time. And if I can do that, I can take retirement and go back to Kerala’. That was the first time I seriously thought about retirement. But I wanted to retire on my terms, not be forced out because I was not good enough. So, I came back in 2018 -- Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, Champions Trophy. it’s continued since then,” he admits.

It also helped that by then, Sreejesh had grown enough to understand that the only thing he could control was his own performance.

Krishan Pathak (left) and PR Sreejesh. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU

“I got mature. When these players came in, I used that opportunity to teach them. And it was not because I am some large-hearted guy; I am very selfish as a player. But I understood that, when you teach somebody, you learn it better too. When you correct somebody, it stays with you and helps you cut down your own mistakes. Also, I had already played two Olympics by then. I know they are younger and fitter than me, faster than me. But when I train with them, it helps me get better, fitter, faster. And, all things being equal, I have got the advantage of experience, right?”

It doesn’t help that, in a squad of 16-18, there can only be 1-2 goalkeepers. “See, if you’re a senior player and the coach wants you in the team, he can always find space for you. But it’s different for goalkeepers, there can be only one. So you need to be fit, your performance at the highest level. You are not one among five. You are the only one, so you better work for it,” he shrugs, when asked about staying on top in the country for almost 15 years.

It all sounds reasonable and routine in hindsight but the actual period was anything but. Injuries apart, there have been times he has come close to quitting, unable and unwilling to handle the failures. “2018 was not good. I was the best goalkeeper at the Asian Games but we couldn’t get into the final and lost in the quarterfinals at World Cup, my father went through heart surgery, there was a lot of drama going on. I was thinking about taking retirement from international hockey because of the pressure - there was too much guilt for everything going wrong. There were people who suggested I was letting my team down. And then we got a two-month break, I spent time at home and that helped me decide to give it one more try,” he reveals.

It’s a rare glimpse into the mind and soul of a man whose face otherwise is always a mask, both literally and figuratively, the effervescent smile unwilling to allow anyone access to his real self. He has found strength and calmness in books – he proudly declares that every time the team flies, he pays for extra baggage because of all the books he carries. But there were those, too, who stood by him then, including former Dutch goalkeeper Jaap Stockman, whom he calls his ‘guarding angel’.

“At Tokyo, I was texting him every time, ‘I need your help’. At Rio, we had lost in the quarters so I wanted to know how to keep myself up. Semifinals was really new to me and then the bronze medal match was an absolutely new thing. I kept asking him, ‘What should I do? What do I focus on?’ He always reminds me, ‘It’s your game. Don’t worry, don’t overthink, just focus on basics, don’t think of negative talk when you concede.’

“You know, we goalkeepers have a psychological block different from others because the guilt we feel after conceding, specially in a lost match, is huge. We sit separately, think differently and keep assuming that the rest of the team is always talking about our mistakes. But he forced me to sit and talk to others, be a part of the team. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that I took his experience with me to Tokyo. And even after that, I was thinking of giving up when he messaged, ‘Why? Has anyone told you to? Has the federation or the coach said you are not fit enough? How will you know till you don’t try?’ I think that one message has kept pushing me till now.”

But the past is never too far from the surface. “Whenever I go home, we talk about the old times. How my father got me a new passport in one day for my first national camp. My journey to my first school, how I cried, how I I joined hockey, became a goalkeeper, got my first game, played the nationals, got into the national camp. 

“How people made fun of me because of my ramshackle pads that I had made by tying wooden sticks, the local jersey that I had stitched myself – I still have it with me. How I went back and complained to my parents, who knew nothing about the cost but bought me my first proper kit. How, when I got my India jersey for the first time, we all kept looking at it, then my father wore it, my brother wore it, and everyone was so proud, even though it was only a junior India tour! 

“My mother talks about how, even though we never went hungry because as farmers there was also rice at home, monetarily she struggled to get Rs. 10. How they flew for the first time ever to come and watch me during the 2010 World Cup but by the time they reached, I was injured and could not play any more. Looking back, it is easy to laugh about all of it now. But it hasn’t been an easy journey. And I don’t want to change anything in it – the injuries, the mocking, the fall and the rise - because everything taught me something, helped me become what I am today,” he declares.

What he is, is a legend in a sport that is still largely non-existent in his home state. An icon who today proudly lives in a house that stands on a road that bears his own name – Olympian PR Sreejesh Road. A testament to his growth into someone who, from not knowing anything other than Malayalam, can now converse in multiple languages and is as comfortable chairing the FIH Athlete’s Committee and flaunting the biggest of brands as he is in a mundu walking bare feet through his farms.

But he is aware of his mortality, as it were, too. And he then reveals the answer to the question everyone has been asking ever since the Paris Olympics started – how does Sreejesh keep pushing himself, broken bones and all?

“Oh, I’m not pushing my broken body, I’m pushing my broken mind. If your mind has the courage to push you, your body will follow. You never listen to your body; you listen to your mind. Yes, there are times you feel the difference. At 16, I never stretched, I would just get up and go to play, then return. Now, the first thing I do is get on to the rollers. I do my rolling, extra stretching, strengthening. Then I do extra rehab. But eventually, it’s the mind that matters. If my mind says ‘Sree, you can do it’, I tell my body to keep up!”

The quarterfinal against GB, for all practical purposes, was a mental game. The semifinal against Germany – perhaps the toughest side in world hockey today in the mind and belief department -- will be more so. And Sreejesh’s mind may well be the difference between India fighting for another bronze or take the step forward to changing the colour of that medal. Even if that doesn’t happen, however, Sreejesh knows he is done. “There will always be the next tournament, the ACT, then the Pro League, the HIL, then next season. No. I’m done.”

Going forward, he wants to be a coach. Not just a goalkeeping coach or a mentor but get into it full-time, may be in charge of the Indian junior team, passing on the experience and the knowledge. For now, the final beckons.