India will face Japan on Friday for a Paris Olympics spot.
Image: PTI
The Indian Women's hockey team suffered a hiccup in their pursuit of qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympics, experiencing a 4-3 defeat in the penalty shootout against Germany during the semifinals of the FIH Women’s Hockey Olympic Qualifiers in Ranchi on Thursday.
Following Thursday's loss to Germany, India women's team head coach Janneke Schopman admitted that it would be difficult for her players to take the field on Friday against Japan after the nerve-wracking defeat to Germany in the sudden-death shoot-out but said her girls will be ready for the clash with Japan as they want to claim a berth in the Olympic Games at any cost.
India defeated Japan on a couple of occasions recently, in the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou and also the Asian Champions Trophy at this same venue. But coach Schopman said those results won't count much on Friday as Japan will go all out with the Olympic berth on the line.
Goalkeeper and skipper Savita had pulled the team through regulation time and had blocked the first two attempts by the Germans but eventually ended on the losing side.
"You know now they're just disappointed and you need to give time to the disappointment to settle in. I think we can't reset, you know, now we have to reset tomorrow morning and that's what we'll do. And tomorrow we'll be ready. And I know they'll be ready. Some of them were already ready, others were not so much. So I think we just need some time," said Schopman after India's defeat in the edge-of-the-seat thriller.
The 45-year-old coach said her players got a little bit impatient by their failure to breach the German defence and started playing the long and aerial balls into the circle, which gave their opponents a chance to take control of the match in the third quarter.
However, Schopman said the Indian players recovered in time and turned back to their strength.
"I think we caught ourselves back to, you know, playing short, playing Blue to Blue. And I think that was key for us today, that we were able to actually manage large parts of the game quite well and not all the game," she said.
She said her's is a good team as it fought till the end.
"We have to show up and we have to keep fighting and we need to keep fighting. And I think you know the fact that we do this now then maybe our quality will shine through like we don't have a guarantee tomorrow. Japan also wants to win. Japan also wants to go to Paris," she said.
She said even if her team fails to make it to the Olympics, what she wants is for them to do whatever they can in the end.
"So we'll fight with our heart and the only thing we can do is show up and hopefully we show up well enough that we can take that qualification. And if not, then we just have to make sure that we did everything we could to clinch the Olympic berth," said Schopman.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)