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The FIH announced grouping and schedule for Women's World Cup 2018 between July 21st to August 5th 2018 at London ... Indian women r in Group B with host nation England, USA and Ireland.

Pool A
The Netherlands (WR #1), China (WR #8), Korea (WR #9) and Italy (WR #17)

Pool B
England (WR #2), USA (WR #7), India (WR #10) and Ireland (WR #16)

Pool C
Argentina (WR #3), Germany (WR #6), Spain (WR #11) and South Africa (WR #14)

Pool D
Australia (WR #4), New Zealand (WR #5), Japan (WR #12) and Belgium (WR #13)

Indian Pool Matches Schedule
Against England - 21st July 2018
Against Ireland - 26th July 2018
Against USA - 29th July 2018

We only play Anglo countries in the Western world for pool matches. Sorry others. If we cannot understand what you are saying in Chinese or 'stralian or 'Zealander or Afrikaans, we don't play you in pool matches!

Here's the schedule for the men's world cup.
http://fih.ch/events/world-cup/world-cu ... /schedule/

If we can avoid slip ups against Canada and South Africa, I think we will be playing meeting a team from Pool A in the QF- so one out of Argentina, New Zealand or Spain. Probably our best chance to get into a semi-final in the world cup since 1982.

Mods: you may want to merge this with the 2014 WC thread and change the title. It makes sense to join the women's WC thread with this too.

And, if you win two more matches after you reach the semi-final ...

So Men's World Cup 2018 will be played between November 28th to December 16th 2018 at Bhubaneswar ... Indian men r in Group C with Belgium, Canada and South Africa.

Pool A
Argentina (WR #2), Spain (WR #8), New Zealand (WR #9) and France (WR# 18)

Pool B
Australia (WR #1), England (WR #7), Ireland (WR #10) and China (WR #17)

Pool C
Belgium (WR #3), India (WR #6), Canada (WR #11) and South Africa (WR #15)

Pool D
The Netherlands (WR #4), Germany (WR #5), Malaysia (WR #12) and Pakistan (WR #13)

Indian Pool Matches Schedule
Against South Africa - 28th November 2018
Against Belgium - 2nd December 2018
Against Canada - 8th December 2018

And, if you win two more matches after you reach the semi-final ...

I can't remember when we strung together 3 consecutive wins in a WC or Olympics.

The format is not as straight forward as usual:

A first-place finish in each pool will guarantee a berth in the quarter-finals, with the second and third place finishers in each pool needing to win a cross-over match, which will be played on December 10 and 11, in order to reach the last eight. The quarter-finals will take place on December 12 and 13.

If we don't win the pool we will have a tough match (possibly against NZ or Spain- both teams which have beaten s regularly) to get to the QF.

Looks as if they have expanded it to 16 teams (from 12) in order to accommodate Pakistan...

16 team format was decided a few years ago and it's a good move. For too long, the set up of FIH has favoured the powerful/rich countries-starting with the move away from natural turf and then 12 team WC, 6 team Champions League, easy entry for NZ into major tournaments.

Pakistan are in a real mess (much like we were for several decades) and I can't see them becoming a force again in the near future.

Going back to 2018 WC, I don't like the cross over nonsense between 2nd and 3rd placed teams in the pool. It could ruin our chances as I feel Belgium will top our pool and we'll have a tough match to even make the QF.

Indian women started their campaign on a positive note, we were lucky ... They managed to hold WR #2 and host British women in 1-all draw ... In this match British women were dominating, they had a big possession, more D penetrations and had 9 penalty corners ... They converted on the 9th penalty corner through Owsley ... In last 7 minutes they tried hard but our women managed to hold and grab a point.

At Women's World Cup 2018, London, England

Pool B
India dw England 1-1 (1-0)
Goal Scorers - Neha Goyal (IND) 25' and Lily Owsley (ENG) 54' PC

We were lucky as England completely dominated the 2nd half.The equaliser was a bit frustrating as Deepika could have cleared the PC shot. It's a very encouraging result. We will need to better this performance against the remaining pool matches to progress into the QFs.
Oh..and the umpiring was standard too. Marijne and the commentators were 'surprised' some of the decisions.

ssp wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:01 pmOh..and the umpiring was standard too. Marijne and the commentators were 'surprised' some of the decisions.

Don't they have video umpires like at the Champions? That seemed to make things a bit fair, right?

Video referrals are present and that saved us a PS. However referrals are only for PCs or strokes or goals. Our tackles were always deemed to be a foul, even if we won the ball cleanly, whilst fouls by the opposing ('white') team are regularly missed by the umpires. This happens far too often, especially in women's hockey.

Great job drawing the first match against the hosts and world #2 despite the bad umpiring.

We lost 1-0 to ireland yesterday and that has made our task of progressing much harder. It was a poor performance because we looked disorganised and gave away too much space in midfield and the flanks (coaching issues!). Ireland defended well and we just couldn't score despite 27 circle penetrations and 7 PCs...standard Indian failings.
We need to finish 3rd as a minimum to play off against 2nd placed team in Pool A (Italy, China, Korea) and then play off v Ireland for a place in the semi. On paper that looks good, but firstly we need to avoid defeat against USA. Knowing our teams, we will mess up this great opportunity. Finishing 2nd in the pool is worse as we will meet Holland in the F (assuming we win the cross over match).