Roeland Oltmans was sacked as the Indian hockey team's coach on Saturday. We look at seven possible replacements for the Dutchman.
The favourites
1. Max Caldas
Caldas, 44, played as a defender for Argentina, and first made his name in coaching with the Netherlands women, whom he coached to successive Olympic gold medals and three World Cup wins. He took over the men's team in 2014, and has since made them an extremely aggressive and attack-minded team. It would be difficult to prize him out from his current job, though.
2. Cedric D'Souza
D'Souza has had two previous stints with the Indian national team, including experience with them at the Olympics. He understands Indian hockey well, having worked with the Delhi franchise of the Hockey India League. More recently, he has been in charge of the Austrian team and led their junior team to a creditable performance at the 2016 World Cup, beating Korea and holding Argentina to a draw in the group stages.
The contenders
3. Gregg Clark
Among coaches from outside India who have had experience of being in the system, yet parted on relatively good terms, the only name that springs to mind is former South African midfielder Gregg Clark. Clark was in charge of the Indian junior team during the previous World Cup cycle, and also coached the Ranchi franchise in the inaugural season of the HIL. He merged the experience of some of their best international players with the exuberant youth of players like Manpreet Singh and Mandeep Singh, leading them to a famous win in the final over Delhi when the latter had just lost one match in 13 till that point. Clark knows many of the current crop from his HIL days, and has the requisite experience of guiding a team in transition, as South Africa's most-capped men's player at the time of his retirement
4. Barry Dancer
Dancer, 65 is a former Australian international, who has coached both his country's national team as well as Great Britain in international hockey. He knows Indian hockey and its players well, having worked with the Punjab team at the HIL. He has a good track record when working with young players, having led Australia to gold at the junior World Cup in Milton Keynes in 1997.
5. Harendra Singh
He would be the perfect fit for the current Indian side. Many in the current setup are making the grade in the senior team after having won the junior World Cup in India last December. Harendra was in charge of the entire roster and prepared them for the tournament. He also had Roelant Oltmans alongside him on the bench during the event, and hence might be in the best position to pick up from the Dutchman's basic philosophy. He has also had several stints with India as assistant coach, which could come in handy.
The dark horses
6. Markus Weise
As a coach, he won Olympic golds with Germany in both women's hockey (2004) as well as men's hockey (2008 and 2012). In recent years, he has moved into a role in German football, but might enjoy the challenge of taking the reins of the Indian team at a time when there's a big pool of talent to choose from.
7. Arjun Halappa
An India international until not long ago -- in fact, he still plays domestic hockey and says he intends to continue doing so till he feels fit enough -- Halappa is one of the assistants Oltmans had been grooming in recent tournaments to eventually take over from him after the 2020 Olympics. With experienced ex-players like Jugraj Singh, Tushar Khandker and Bharat Chettri all also involved with the Indian camps in the past few tournaments, it might be the perfect left-of-field solution to invest in young coaches.