Misc. news about Indian hockey

[arjun2761]

Nice win by both Indian teams!

While they may have had bias for younger players, I would be surprised if most of the countries did not send a team that had many members likely to make their Olympic team next year. These events are great to give them a preview of the conditions that they would face during the Olympics and it would be kind of stupid to send a third-string team.

[ssp]

Post by rajitghosh » Wed Aug 21, 2019 2:11 pm

Must have been a 3rd string New Zealand team

No, this was New Zealand's first team with several very experienced players, while we had quite a few youngsters. NZ play Australia soon for the Oceania Cup and used this tournament as preparation. Malaysia had a few new players, but they have just had a horrible run -big defeats in Europe (including an 8-0 hammering by Belgium) and a 6-1 loss to Japan for 3rd place here.

On the women's side, Australia fielded an experimental team. We have been steadily improving, mainly because the coach has addressed fitness issues and got some kind of sensible structure. Under Hawgood, we would struggle to string more than 2 passes or whacked the ball aimlessly. Really awful nonsense, yet HI wasted several years on a useless coach.

So overall, both of our teams did well. My only concern is that Mandeep scored several goals and that means he will not be dropped for the next 4-5 years

[jaydeep]

Agree with you SSP about Mandeep.
Here is an assessment by our coach Graham Reid.

An experience that's hard to buy: Graham Reid sums up India's Olympics test event

[ssp]

I think our men's team will drop to 6th in the rankings, if Germany win the European Championships or get to the final.

Thankfully, GB failed to get into the semis. Belgium look the best at the European championships. I feel the true rankings are: Australia, Belgium, Holland, Germany as top 4, then Argentina, India, Spain, GB, NZ in the next group. Korea should be in this group, but have had a bad run recently and also struggles on the financial side has hampered them.

India is capable of losing to any of the second group but will occasionally draw or even win. Against the top 4, we are unlikely to do much. Maybe pull off a draw on a good day against Germany. On a bad day, we can lose to Malaysia, Canada or Ireland

[jaydeep]

I think, fair ranking considering our recent performances.

[arjun2761]

On the women's side, Australia fielded an experimental team. We have been steadily improving, mainly because the coach has addressed fitness issues and got some kind of sensible structure. Under Hawgood, we would struggle to string more than 2 passes or whacked the ball aimlessly. Really awful nonsense, yet HI wasted several years on a useless coach.

So overall, both of our teams did well. My only concern is that Mandeep scored several goals and that means he will not be dropped for the next 4-5 years

Per Wikipedia, the Aussies sent a very experienced team with all but 2 players having more than 20 caps. I suspect this team includes mostly players they are targeting for the Olympics. If so, a really creditable draw by the Indians. The Aussies did lose to China in the opening match but then beat them in the 3-4 place match.

[Sin Hombre]

Disagree with ssp on relative rankings.

Germany is not better than us at this point.

Tier 1 : Oz, NL and Belgium
Tier 2 : India, Arg, Ger, Eng

Spain and NZ are in a lower tier with Canada, Malaysia and Ireland.

[Sin Hombre]

Germany didn't reach the Euro finals, and Belgium won 5-0 in the finals beating Spain.

Assuming Australia beats NZ in a week, we will be the 2nd seeds behind the Dutch and play the second bottom team Austria in the qualifiers.

Pakistan will play England and Korea will play Germany so not looking likely for the Asian teams.

I would imagine Austria is a fit team so maybe not the easiest.

@ssp, can we get upset?

[ssp]

The draw is a bit complicated. Top 3 ranked teams will play 3 lowest ranked teams, but the match ups will be drawn randomly on 9th September.

Top 3 are Holland, India & England. This is assuming Australia win the Oceania cup. Lowest 3 teams will be Pakistan, Austria & Egypt. So we will play one of these 3 and in answer to your question, an upset is only possible v Pakistan. It shouldn't happen given how poorly Pakistan have been playing for the last 4+ years, but they always raise their game against us. We may end up playing them in a neutral venue. Other 2 teams should be fine, especially as we'll be playing at home

I'm hoping our women get a decent draw too. They'll be playing at home against one of Canada, Italy, Chile or Russia. Hope we avoid Canada.

[sameerph]

Our men started 3 match tour of Belgium with a good 2-0 win yesterday ( goals by Mandeep and Akashdeep) A win over world #2 Belgium is good indeed although i read somewhere that they were not at full strength.

This is a report on the match -

Mandeep, Akashdeep guide Indian hockey team to 2-0 win over Belgium

[jaydeep]

Yes, they r playing with an experimental team ... So mix of seniors, second string and juniors.

[PKBasu]

TOI match report suggests that India dominated he first match against Belgium. Encouraging!

[ssp]

Win over Belgium was nice but they had only 4-5 players from the first team. Maybe they will field a stronger side in the remaining matches.
More encouraging was today's 6-1 win over Spain. Can't remember when we last thrashed them like this. Probably in the 1950s or 60s.
Good start for Graham Reid.

[ssp]

5-1 win over Spain today. That's impressive stuff. Spain used to be top 4 team about a decade ago, but haven't been producing high quality players recently and have also suffered from funding (looks Korea and Pakistan), but are still a decent side, so these 2 big wins are encouraging for us.

Now we play 2 more matches with Belgium. Hopefully they'll field a stronger side and if we can get another couple good results, then we can start dreaming about the future

[ssp]

Another win today! This time it was 2-1 over Belgium, who had 8 regular first team players rather than the 4/5 in the 1st test, so this is nice result.