Vandana Katariya credits team bonding to keep her motivated during injury

It was a big blow to the side that was playing in their maiden Pro League and had major tournament like World Cup and Commonwealth Games all lined up in the later part of the year. However, the rehabilitation process went on smoothly and she was back on her feet in two months’ time. She even made her comeback against Belgium and was on target as India won both the matches against the US.

While anybody would have been worried being injured during such a crucial year, Vandana wasn’t concerned a bit. And the reasons behind that were her teammates and coaches around her. "The best thing about our team is that neither my teammates nor my coaches ever made me feel that I am injured.

They kept helping me and didn’t even let me do anything. They kept motivating me. They kept saying positive things everyday so that the mind remained fresh," said the senior striker during a virtual interaction with TOI from the Netherlands.

The bonding among the players has been one of the high points of this Indian team since the Olympics. They are more of a family now where the senior players are like elder sisters to the juniors, and they always have each other’s back. And one expects it to play a major role when team begins their World Cup journey against England in Amsterdam on Sunday.

However, at World Cup the team will be without their mercurial midfielder and former captain Rani Rampal, who have been left out of the squad after failing to recover from an injury. The good thing though is that the team has been playing without her post Olympics and according to Vandana it hasn’t been too challenging. "We have been playing together for a long time and we stick to the structure that the coach tells us from beforehand.