Lagaan revisited: How Brazilian coach Doering mastered kho-kho via YouTube to build a World Cup team

New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) Her journey brings to mind Aamir Khan’s Oscar-nominated film ‘Lagaan’, where the protagonist Bhuvan, faces the monumental task of mastering a foreign sport and building a team of villagers in just three months.

While Bhuvan fought for cricket in Lagaan, Laura Doering, the coach of Brazil’s men’s kho-kho team, faced a unique challenge — mastering an unfamiliar sport and leading her team to a historic World Cup debut against India, the very birthplace of the game.

Porto Alegre-based flag football coach Laura turned to YouTube to learn the game, handpicked her players, and trained them within the constraints of limited practice sessions, all in just four months.

“People know Brazil for football and we had never heard about kho-kho. And here we are representing our country in a game which we learnt just four months back. It’s unbelievable,” Laura told PTI Bhasha in an interview.

The journey began two years back when she met general secretary of International Kho-Kho Federation Rohit Haldania who told her about their plans to introduce the game in Brazil.

“I found this very interesting and challenging but never knew that we would be having a national team,” she said.

So when Brazil got a chance to take part in the World Cup, the biggest challenge was to build a team of 15 players and make them learn a completely alien game.

“I watched a lot of videos on YouTube, started following Indians and took their inputs. Rohit came to Brazil for a week and taught us about the game. Indians whom I followed were very helpful and sent me a lot of videos that really helped,” said the young coach.

She also said people in Brazil were initially amused watching their training sessions but gradually started taking interest.

“I did a few training camps where people were amused, thinking we’re playing Pega Pega (a game in which a child attempts to catch other children) with rules. Many kids got interested and wanted to play,” said the coach of a local flag football team Bravos.

It was not an easy task to convince players from handball, football or athletics to play khokho and compete with the best.

“It was very difficult. All my players are from different sports like one is from handball, another is a footballer and are from different cities. We were mostly connected online and had few offline training sessions. I mixed them all to form a kho-kho team. When I chose my players speed, change of direction and sense of teamwork were the main criteria,” she said.

“I messaged my players that we have to travel, to play and have fun. We played our first international match against the country which invented the game. We knew that we have miles to go but it was an honour to play against India and we didn’t mind the loss. We hope that next time we will be a better team,” she added.

She feels that kho-kho has a bright future in Brazil and the World Cup experience will help to develop the game there.

“We have some sponsors in Brazil who found this game very funny and were ready to invest. In just four months kho-kho has generated interest among kids. We have a federation in place and this experience will help us to spread the game even more,” she added.

She further said it was always her dream to visit the country.

“It’s a dream come true to visit India. I had heard a lot about India, its culture, food and hospitality. I also want to visit the Taj Mahal,” she signed off.