FIH's Hockey Pro League - (Men's and Women's)

[ssp]

Maddeningly, we have selected some of the players that I have railed against for about a decade!

Akashdeep gets in despite some really awful performances (even by his standards) in the last 3 years. Remember he was dropped for the Tokyo Olympics but instead of blooding in younger players like Karthi Selvan or Pawan Rajbar or Shilanand Lakra, the selectors have gone back to this guy. Lalit also is guaranteed selection despite pretty average displays. Mandeep will be selected till the 2028 Olympics

The result is a toothless attack and over reliance on PCs for goals. With these forwards, we don't win enough PCs either.

A few of the U21s have been selected, so let's hope these players step up and eventually push out the dross.

Tough matches here and then v Germany and GB.

[sameerph]

Womens team lost 0-5 against Argentina. So, not a good start for Harinder as a coach but this is just first match, so let us see.

Mens match will start soon.

[ssp]

Men conceded in the last minute as always but won the shoot out.

Women were outclassed. A few new faces, but we didn't play well.

[sameerph]

Also umpires were hell bent on making us loose, a repeat PC was awarded to Argentina by video umpire when did not appear to be any foul.

Overall, we were on and off though, good in certain periods and then bad at some times.

[ssp]

4-1 loss to Belgium. That's the level we know and expect. We have no hope of getting beyond the QFs at the Olympics. It won't be a total surprise if we don't get out of the group.

Frankly, Fulton has taken us backwards with defensive tactics but given our ability to mess up at the back and the quality of several of our players, we can't hope to win games against the top 5 teams. Our attack is too cr*p to make up for the 3/4 goals that we are guaranteed to concede. I'll continue to hope that we finally get selections on merit and ruthlessly drop players who can't trap, pass or tackle cleanly.

Yesterday, the umpires cost us that last minute PC and goal for Argentina.

The women kept the margin of defeat to Belgium to only 2 goals. That's a bit of a relief. Again some downright stupid selections. For about the 5th tournament, we have no specialist drag flicker. Just beyond belief.

[Sin Hombre]

We drew 2-2 vs Belgium and lost in the shootout. Reading the text updates, we might have been the slightly better team.

Women lost 2-1 to Belgium.

[sameerph]

I watched the second half and we were at least even. Made a mistake on last PC trying to take a indirect hit when we had Harmanpreet to take the PC. And do these video umpires ever give the decision in our favour? Last PC given to Belgium which resulted in their second goal was clearly wrong and video umpire did not overturn the decision despite clear view.

[Sin Hombre]

We did our usual shit of not winning comfortably. 5-2 went to 5-4 in the dying minutes.

[sameerph]

Yes, we almost gave up that handy lead in the end. But, before that we played really well to take a 5-2 lead.

I really liked this guy Arijit Singh Hundal, he scored 1 goal and created another one. Hope he is selected in the Paris olympics team. In forward line,apart from Hundal, Gurjant, Abhishek and Sukhjeet looked good. If they replace Akashdeep and Mandeep with couple more youngsters, we can have a good forwardline.

[ssp]

Pleased to get a win. Conceding late goals is guaranteed.

In forward line,apart from Hundal, Gurjant, Abhishek and Sukhjeet looked good. If they replace Akashdeep and Mandeep with couple more youngsters, we can have a good forwardline.

These selections would give us some chance of getting into the semi finals at the Olympics
Karthi Selvan or Pawan Rajbar in attack would make a big difference. Lalit, Mandeep and Akashdeep are hopeless (I may have said this before ....about 100x).

Drop Raj Kumar Pal- he's too weak in possession. Replace him with Mohammed Raheel. Can't work out why Shamsher gets in ahead of Simranjeet.

In defence, Jarmanpreet is too slow and only ever passes backwards. Amit is only selected for his PC defence. He's cost us several times with needless fouls resulting in PCs or strokes.

We've wasted 3 years since Tokyo by selecting the same old faces over and over again.

[ssp]

Ireland beat Belgium 4-1 yesterday to complete a double over the Olympic champions! Their defence seems much better than ours. Clean tackles and trapping and no silly errors or dribbling near the D

Let's see how we fare v GB and Germany. Avoiding 4 defeats would be a start!

[sameerph]

Today our mens and womens matches are against Germany.

In last few days, Australia got thrashed by Belgium 1-5 and also lost to Argentina 1-2. Why only we struggle so much against Australia ?

[sameerph]

Let's see how we fare v GB and Germany. Avoiding 4 defeats would be a start!

Start with a 3-0 win over Germany.

[ssp]

Very pleased to see a 3-0 win v Germany. They're trying out new players which is what we should have done over the past 2 years.

I'm hoping we can get some good results v GB too.

And maybe the women can avoid 4 defeats!

[sameerph]

1-3 loss against GBR for our men. So, we remain inconsistent.