India’s men’s hockey team chief coach Roelant Oltmans conceded that Belgium played with much more quality and experience and deserved to progress to the semi-finals here on Sunday, says a report in The Indian Express.
“The energy level of Belgium was very high. We didn’t bring in the quality that we brought in London (at the Champions Trophy in June). For the boys there’s was a lot of stress and pressure. Belgium took away the initiative and they deserved to win,” Oltmans told reporters, after the match.
“You have to see where we come from. We have the youngest team in the competition and for most of them this is their first kind of experience. You do need experience to win this level of game. We played with full pressure, but full pressure, I always say, is a kind of bluff. There are always gaps. Later in the game, we tried to put full pressure and even took out the goalkeeper,” the Dutchman said.
According to a report in NDTV website, a lacklustre India squandered a one goal advantage to go down 1-3 to Belgium in the quarterfinals and crashed out of the men's hockey competition of the Rio Olympics on Sunday.
“India took the lead through a fine field effort from Akashdeep Singh (15th minute) before Belgium pumped in three field goals from Sebastien Dockier (34th, 45th) and Tom Boon (50th) to dash India's hopes of their first medal after the gold in 1980 at Moscow,” says the report.
“Having topped Pool A, Belgium were the favourites to win the encounter and they played like champions dominating the proceedings for most part of the game barring a few minutes in the second quarter after India took the lead late in the first quarter. India, on the other hand, looked completely out of sorts as they played catch-up hockey. The forwardline cut a sorry figure as they hardly created any chances which could be gauged from the fact that India failed to earn a single penalty corner in the entire 60 minutes,” says the report.
Captain Sreejesh also admitted that the team lacked the energy needed to win a crunch quarter-final. “We needed to show more team unity and energy after the first goal. We need to improve that and we need to see these matches as do or die matches,” he said.
