REJUVENATED INDIA EYE WIN VS ARGENTINA TO SEAL BERTH IN QUARTER-FINALS
TOKYO: A resurgent Indian men’s hockey team would look to seal a quarterfinal berth but defending champions Argentina won’t be an easy challenge to overcome when the two sides clash in their penultimate pool match of the Olympics here on Thursday.
With two wins out of three games, world no.4 India are sitting pretty at the second spot in Pool A, which is being headed by the unbeaten Australians which boast of a perfect record till now from three games.
Argentina, currently ranked seventh in the world, are placed at the fourth spot with one win, a draw and a loss respectively.
After a hard-fought 3-2 win over New Zealand, the Indians, who are in pursuit of their first Olympic medal in more than four decades, were drubbed 1-7 by Australia before the eighttime champions bounced back to outplay Spain 3-0.
India’s last of the eight Olympic golds came way back in 1980 Moscow Games.
The Los Leones, on the other hand, drew their first game 1-1 with Spain, won 2-1 against hosts Japan and lost 2-5 to Australia.
The 3-0 win over Spain has definitely raised the confidence level of the Manpreet Singh-led side, especially after the moraleshattering loss to Australia but according to India’s chief coach Graham Reid, a lot of improvement is needed in every aspect of the game.
India conceded as many as eight penalty corners against Spain on Tuesday, a statistic which continues to worry the team’s Australian coach.
“...but a lot of things to work on from an improvement perspective. The fact that we gave too many corners (against Spain), that’s always a concern when that happens. But the team did really well in terms of defending,” he had said.
Manpreet’s men played high pressure hockey from the word go against Spain and it is something they would like to continue against an ageing Argentine defence.
Dragflicker Rupinder Pal Singh scored a brace against Spain —one from a penalty stroke and the other from a penalty corner, while the other was from Simranjeet Singh’s field effort.