Bhubaneswar sleeps by 10 pm. Even on weekends. So a Belgian hockey team which decided that walking through the city streets would help clear the thought process was picked up by an alert police force, who were panicked knowing that the Belgians were out without informing them.
The spin on the story, however, came from the fact that they ‘probably’ had scaled the hotel walls and then walked to the stadium to perform some ‘rituals’ as they wanted to win their next match against Spain. The next match was a classification; not a potential quarterfinal, semi final or final, and the Belgians aren't known to be this desperate.
In fact, Orissa Post reported Belgian captain Thomas Briels as saying, “Yes, we had visited the stadium to develop a personal bond with it and with the city as well. We will have to play the World Cup here next year and we wanted to familiarise ourselves with the venue. And we felt the best time to visit the stadium would be midnight. This is a venue where we lost to India in the quarterfinals. We don’t want a repetition of that next year. Also, we got to understand the city better.” It is not sure how walking a couple of kilometres would have made them understand Bhubaneswar better or visiting the stadium at night would help them familiarise with the infrastructure. Unless, of course, the Belgians wanted to do some track training at the athletics stadium next to the hockey stadia.
And neither is this the first time the Belgians have been to the city. They had played here in the 2014 Champions Trophy where after taking a 2-0 lead, they lost the match to India 2-4. Members of that team are still in the squad like goalkeeper Vincent Vanasch, Sebastian Dockier, John-john Dohmen and a few others.
Superstitions are nothing new in sports, but it is tough to spot a team that has scaled the walls of the hotel, walked the streets and then tried and reach the stadium to perform some midnight rituals!Thankfully, the police didn’t catch them with a chicken whose head would be cut off and the blood poured at each of the goal posts–this ritual is performed in Cameroon before clubs or the national football team plays an important fixture.
Superstition is a part of an athlete’s life. Even the best have some ritual or the other. Michael Phelps may need an entire security detail to protect his 23 Olympic Gold but what’s less known is the fact that he walks to the starting block, takes off his headphones which have been filling his ears with Michael Jackson songs and then he swings his arms three times. Serena Williams wears the same pair of socks throughout the tournament. There are stories about former Argentinean football goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea who before facing penalty kick would pee on the pitch.
Coaches sometimes do tell athletes to indulge in their pet superstitions but some also warn against taking it too far. Some athletes take it too far and it can affect performances. What if someone stole Serena’s socks, then?
In hockey, Alex Danson, part of the Gold medal winning GB team at the Rio Olympics is known to spin her taped-up stick around 15 times before a match; look carefully and you will notice Rafael Nadal ensures his waters bottles are all facing the same way at Wimbledon while Michael Jordan wore an additional pair of shorts during one NBA championship. It doesn’t qualify as a superstition but four-time Olympian and legendary Indian forward Dhanraj Pillay used to wash his own clothes during important tournaments and also would ensure that he ironed his shirts himself.
It is safe to assume that Belgians, stressed after losing to India in sudden-death, decided to get some air before their match against Spain. Or maybe, it was simply a team-building exercise. It’s just that the cops assigned to look after their security was not told of their nocturnal event. Panic led to a search and the search finally led to different versions. Maybe, the Belgians should take a leaf out of Steve Waugh’s book and carry a red handkerchief or sport a black taveez like Mohammed Azharuddin did. Superstitions need to be kept simple too.
