- Saturday, April 27, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
EIGHT-TIME gold winners India maintained their newfound momentum in the fourth game in Pool A on Thursday (29) when they thumped Rio Olympic champions Argentina 3-1 in the men’s hockey event at Oi Hockey Stadium at the Tokyo Games.
The men in blue scored two goals in the final two minutes of the game to qualify for the quarter-finals along with Australia, who are comfortably placed at No.1 in the pool. India defeated New Zealand 3-2 in their opening game but were crushed 1-7 by the Australians before they rebounded to beat Spain 3-0. India will play their final group game on Friday (30) against hosts Japan who are languishing at the bottom of the table.
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The game saw goal-less first two quarters but India broke the deadlock in the 43rd minute through Varun Kumar before Vivek Sagar Prasad and Harmanpreet Singh scored in the 58th and 59th minutes to seal the contest. Argentina’s only goal came when Schuth Casella converted a penalty corner five minutes after India took the lead. Argentina will have to beat New Zealand in their final group match on Friday in order to remain alive in the competition.
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India chief coach Graham Reid lauded his players for their performances but said it definitely wasn’t easy against Argentina despite the scoreline suggesting otherwise.
“Good performance today. This is what Argentina can do, they sit back in the game, and then all of a sudden they score a corner. You know these things can happen when you play a team like Argentina,” he said about the goal conceded by India.
Reid reminded his players about the opportunities that India missed in the match from scoring more but was happy that they adopted a patient approach and stuck to their game plan. “We again put our opportunities away, we created enough. But what was good is that we didn’t let that frustrates us, we stayed patient and stuck with the game plan. I’m very happy, it can be a bit stressful too for me,” Reid, an Olympic medallist Australian, said.
