Tears of pain had flowed in torrents for 41 years. Today Indian hockey fans eyes’ were awash with joy as their team in blue overcame Germany 5-4 after a thrilling fightback to win the Olympic bronze medal at the Oi stadium in Tokyo.
In 1968, the bronze was greeted with disdain. But today it was a celebration of self-belief by an Indian team who, despite being brutalized 1-7 by Australia in the pool match, came back to script history.
And India certainly needed faith in themselves to come back from a 1-3 deficit in the bronze medal playoff to clinch its first podium finish since the last of eight gold medals at Moscow 1980.
Germany took the lead in the second minute through Timur Oruz. India equalized in the 18th minute through Simranjeet Singh but Germany seemed to race away with the match with a 3-1 lead with goals by Niklas Wellen and Benjamin Furk after a bout of poor defending by India which saw Neelakanta Sharma conceding a turnover and later Surender Kumar’s filibustering leading to a PC.
India made it 2-3 when Hardik Singh picked up a rebound off goalkeeper Stadler after Harmanpreet Singh’s drag flick drew the save in the 27th minute.
Two minutes later, Harmanpreet made it 3-3 with a fluent drag flick that went between Alexander Stadler and the left post-man and India were back in business.
The quick goals were part of a blitz reminiscent of an epic 5-5 score after an Indian team trailed 1-5 in the 1985 Champions Trophy in Perth.
History seemed to repeat itself when Rupinder Pal Singh dispatched a penalty stroke to put India 4-3 ahead a minute into the third quarter. It was 5-3 when Gurjant dashed into the circle from the right flank and pulled the ball back for Simranjeet to score his second goal in the 34th minute.
India could have delivered the killer blow but a premature whistle denied them the advantage when Mandeep Singh had the ball in goal.
It seemed ominous when Germany made it 4-5 from one of 11 penalty corners forced and induced a grandstand finish to the match.
Mandeep could have staved off the jitterbugs when he went head-to-head with Stadler after a quick turnover down the middle but came off second best.
As the Germans pressed or the equalizer, pulling off Stadler as the last throw of the dice, the PC count rung alarmingly.
But it just showed the vital heroes in this campaign – Amit Rohidas, the first runner out at PC defence and the PR Sreejesh, “The Wall” who stood firm with the last play of the match 6.8 seconds from the end, getting a glove to a PC drag flick and making the Germans sink to their knees in despair.