Times of India: Focus was on defence and counter-attacks: Manpreet Singh
Feroz Khan
BHUBANESWAR: India on Wednesday knocked out tournament favourites Belgium from the Hockey World League Final, winning the quarter-final match in the sudden death. The game ended 3-3 in regulation time and then in the shootout too both teams scored two goals each. Harmanpreet Singh then slotted home what turned out to be the winner in the sudden death as Akash Chikte saved the Belgium attempt.
India captain Manpreet Singh said the team went back on the drawing board and worked on its strengths and executed the strategy in the game which they took as a final. “We looked at this game as our final. It was the quarterfinal [stage] and we were playing against Belgium one of the best teams in the world. So, our aim was the give our best. Focus was on maintaining defensive structure and counter attacks. We wanted to score every time we get a PC.
Rupinder and Harman scored. We took our chances, converted them and I think it was a plus point. In our previous games, we weren’t able to do this but today we executed it properly,” Manpreet said while addressing media after the match.
It was a sweet revenge for the hosts who were knocked out by Belgium last year at the Rio Olympics at the quarter-final stage but Manpreet refused to consider it as one. “We never thought of revenge. Our focus was on playing to our potential, we worked on it. We had seen Belgium play and worked out their strengths and weaknesses. We controlled the game and dictated the pace of,” he said.
Coach Sjoerd Marijne said that he saw a lot of previous Belgium matches to prepare his team for the all-important clash and that the team improved by several notches when compared to their previous matches of the ongoing tournament. “Yes, I saw a lot of matches. We always prepare with the analytic coach. The defending was good, structure was good. It all had to do at the individual level. I also saw a different team from the last few matches and I must say against Australia and England there were few good moments. But today, it was during the entire match. They were extremely focused and it was nice that I got to experience with the team,” Marjine said.
Coach also praised the forwards for making “good choices” and said they worked hard on maintaining the energy level throughout the match. “It was very positive performance from our team against one of the best [team] of the tournament. We had the control. The energy, the way we got the penalty corners, we had to work on those. It is important to get better and better with every match. I think today we did better than the previous game. Our marking is getting better. So, I am happy with that,” the Dutch said.
Explaining the reason behind brining Akash Chikte in place of Suraj Karkera two minutes into the fourth quarter despite the latter putting up a decent show, Marjine said, “I saw Suraj Karkera’s body language, the trust went down from in after Belgium scored for the second time from the penalty corner. So, we brought Akash in.”