Misc. news about Indian hockey

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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by jaydeep »

Indian men's hockey team lost 0-1 against hosts Belgium in Boom on Wednesday in the opening match of their five-match tour of Europe ... India conceded the goal in the dying minutes of the fourth quarter as Tom Boon scored the winning goal.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

Shame to concede in the last minute, but not a bad result considering our recent form.

I suspected changing of 6-7 the regular/senior players would not hurt us to much. Let's see how we fare in the 2nd match today. Maybe this squad is better than the Azlan Shah & HWL teams ;)

The Dutch will be real challenge as they beat England 9-1 & Germany 7-1 a few days ago in a 4 nations tournament in Spain. They looked brilliant in the recent HWL too. I would rate them as the best team in the world right now.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by sameerph »

Is this a full strength Belgian side ? If so, this is a good result by our young team.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

Lost 3-1 in the 2nd match. Disappointing result, especially as we took the lead.

I think this is a full strength Belgian team. Our 'full strength' team would have lost as well.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

Incredible result today from our young team. We have beaten Holland 4-3!! We were 4-1 up but (as usual) conceded twice late in the game.

Shows the value of picking the best players and results will follow. If only our selectors could come to their senses. Please drop the dross and select the likes of Armaan Qureshi, Dipsan Tirkey, Gurinder Singh etc We have had enough of non performing 'seniors'.

In this squad, only Mandeep and Uthappa are real weak links. Usually we have 5 of these guys in any given tournament.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by sameerph »

Great to see a win over Holland at their home. This young team does appear better than our so called senior full strength teams. :D
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by arjun2761 »

I'd like to think so as well but would like to see them do it in a meaningful competition. Sometimes experienced teams are experimenting in these friendlies....
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

Holland and Belgium are preparing for the European championships which start next week, so they are at full strength. Having watched Holland at the recent HWL in London and the recent 4 nations tournament in Spain, this is a significant (& unexpected) win for us. We have been utterly useless against Holland, Germany & Australia for over 40 years, so any win against any of these teams is priceless.

We won this match with 9 of our U21 WC winners (& without the best of them, Harmanpreet Singh). That is very encouraging. The selectors & HI need to ensure that we don't squander this group like we have done so many times in the past.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

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This is a really good result and I agree with ssp that HI will build the team around/ considering these young players.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

Unbelievable.
We have beaten Holland 2-1 today. Gurjant & Mandeep scored the goals.

We have one more game left on this tour. It's against Austria,who are coached by Cedric D'Souza.

Given our recent form and repeated defeats to Holland and latterly, Belgium, I was hoping we could avoid 4 losses. We almost got a draw in the first Belgium game and getting 2 wins against Holland is just fantastic.

Really pleased to see Gurjant and Armaan scoring in Holland. Let's hope these 2 guys develop into the forwards that we have been craving for for ages.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

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Wow, these r terrific results for our young team ... Now, we need to build the team around these core characters.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by sameerph »

Wow, back to back wins against Holland against their best team on their turf is terrific. :clap:
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by PKBasu »

Amazing to be beating Holland, although somehow we have always come closest to beating them among the Big Three of hockey (Australia, Germany, Holland) over the past 40 years. I remember the narrow loss via the penalty shoot-out in the 1973 World Cup final in Holland... :-( During Dhanraj's day, we came mighty close to beating the Dutch in the Champions Trophy (again in Holland IIRC), before losing 3-4 or drawing 3-3 after leading 3-1 until the last few minutes.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by ssp »

We have finished the tour with a 4-3 victory over Austria. I was hoping for a more convincing win, but will settle for this as we threw away a 3-1 lead by conceding 2 quick goals in Q4 and we just sneaked the winner with 10 seconds remaining.

Didn't see any of the matches, but reports suggest decent defending and midfield play and at last, we scored off PC variations. Pleased to see Varun, Gurjant and Armaan Qureshi score their first senor international goals. Conceding late goals continues to plague our teams.

I hope the selectors drop Mandeep & Uthappa from this team. Affan Youssef deserves at least half the opportunities afforded to Mandeep. I'd bring in Harmanpreet, Sunil and Nikkin for the next tournament. The one player that would be a great asset is Gurbaj. I just wish HI would (for once) think logically and forget the past. After all, the results are main thing.
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Re: Misc. news about Indian hockey

Post by jaydeep »

ssp wrote: Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:42 pmThe one player that would be a great asset is Gurbaj. I just wish HI would (for once) think logically and forget the past. After all, the results are main thing.
And they have already punished more than enough.
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