Bhubaneswar: Following a thumping 8-2 win against Poland to qualify for the quarterfinals and a vast improvement in performance, India hockey coach Graham Reid expressed confidence that India will overcome the tough Belgium hurdle in the last-eight match of the FIH Odisha Hockey Men’s Junior World Cup on December 1.
According to Reid, he was happy with the way boys played in drubbing Poland 8-2 in their last preliminary league match on Saturday.
“I was pretty happy, to be honest, we started well which was the plan to put some scoreboard pressure on them which was good, and we did the same in the second half that also helps. Our press and our defence was a little bit better than in previous days. We had a lot of opportunities tonight and it is always hard to put away so many chances,” Reid was quoted as saying in the mixed zone by news agency IANS on Saturday.
Reid said India will utilise the next three days to study their own game and that of European giants Belgium to devise an effective plan. The India-Belgium clash will be a repeat of the final of the Junior Hockey World Cup 2016 at Lucknow in which the hosts beat Belgium to win their second Under-21 title.
“We now have three days and I was talking to the group that we have three days and we will prepare and we will do well. We will look at all the videos we can and we will be analyzing our game and we will be analyzing Belgium and we came out last night as a team to see them play against Malaysia, so that was good. They (the players) had a look at them play and we are very confident and hopefully, we can go and get a victory,” said the coach.
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