Good, but just not enough.
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Argentina’s Manuel Brunet, right, comforts Spain’s David Alegre, left, after his team beat Spain 2-1 during a men’s field hockey quarterfinal match at 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016. The Germans erupted like they’d won, and a shootout was on the cards. “Belgium took away the initiative and they deserved to win”, Oltmans told reporters, after the match.
It wasn’t that the Indians played badly in the quarterfinal.
Up 5-0 at halftime, Argentina eased off.
Belgium is followed by Spain in Group A, and India may play Spain, if Ireland beat Argentina.
The second half saw the Belgians up the ante, as they started using the long balls and deft deflections inside the circle to good effect. Sebastien Dockier scored twice and Tom Boon added a third in the final quarter to down India 3-1 on Sunday.
So how did they fare on the whole?
“When we qualified for the Rio, our first target was to get into the quarterfinals”.
“So it is a tough team to beat but I think it’s all about how we cope with pressure on that day and that will be the key point”, stressed the 28-year-old goalkeeper. Always relying on direct attacks, they had two men hovering over India’s “D’ for the entire duration of the match – even when they were 3-1 up”. Belgium march into the semi-final of the hockey competition while India head home.
Belgium’s opponents in the Semi-Finals would be the victor of the day’s stand-out fixture, as Pool B runners up Netherlands (WR: 2) took on the mighty Australia (WR: 1), who finished a lowly third in Pool A. The European champions produced a sensational performance to thrash the reigning World, Champions Trophy and Hockey World League title holders 4-0, giving the Dutch a feeling of redemption following their 6-1 World Cup final defeat at the hands of the Kookaburras on home soil in The Hague two years ago. That is a sign of the respect this Indian team commands and should take heart from in the future.
True, there were no big defeats, but there was none to produce a single moment of individual brilliance when the team needed it the most. Day one of the sports event received a viewership of 52.7 million viewers in India.
Just as time was running out in the first quarter, the Belgians were stunned.
Two minutes later, Cavallero scored her second goal of the match as she found the back of the net after being feed by Merino Delfina.
But India broke the deadlock in the final minute of the first quarter against the run of play through Akashdeep who got a deft deflection to a Manpreet Singh pass inside the circle to go into the break on a high.
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The last aspect which went missing in the last-eight fixture in particular was self-belief. In the 40th minute, India earned a penalty corner but failed to make it count. India had gone from strength to strength in recent months while Belgium had slumped down the ranking ladder due to some indifferent performances previous year – especially in the European Nations Cup.
