The Indian hockey team left the city for Santiago in Chile, to take part in the nine-day Olympics qualifiers, beginning on March 1. The players would reach Mumbai late on Sunday night and take an early morning flight to Santiago on Monday.

''The boys are rearing to go. We need to win this tournament very badly,'' said chief coach Joaquim Carvalho before the team’s departure. The team was put through its paces at a four-day camp at the SAI Southern Centre in the outskirts of the City.

''It was basically a self analysis made by the players themselves at the camp. It had more to do with video analysis and we also had a couple of practice sessions. I have never seen the boys work so hard for many years. Now the work on planning is over and implementing is left to them,'' Carvalho said.

The squad has left-half back Prabodh Tirkey as its skipper and young drag-flicker Diwakar Ram is the only new face. In the absence of Sandeep Singh, who opted out of the preparatory camp on health grounds, V R Raghunath is the main drag-flicker. With Adrian D'Souza not fully fit, the custodian’s job will be a toss-up between Bharat Chetri and Baljit Singh.

India would face Russia in their opening encounter. Britain, Austria, Mexico and hosts Chile are the other teams in the fray in the tournament. The winner would take last qualifying spot for the Beijing Olympics.