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Indian Hockey Team climbs to 4th spot in world rankings


Gollum

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1st time since rankings were introduced (2003).

Recently beat Netherlands twice, Belgium once. Today lost to Belgium but played well. Wonderful to see, never thought I would see this day. 

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Our coach Graham Reid has been very good, previously did excellent work as head coach of the Aussies. Hope our federation doesn't fire him after a bad result like they have done with almost all our previous good coaches. Need to show patience, unlike cricket there is a lot of competition in this sport.

Edited by Gollum
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5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

1st time since rankings were introduced (2003).

Recently beat Netherlands twice, Belgium once. Today lost to Belgium but played well. Wonderful to see, never thought I would see this day. 

View image on Twitter

Our coach Graham Reid has been very good, previously did excellent work as head coach of the Aussies. Hope our federation doesn't fire him after a bad result like they have done with almost all our previous good coaches. Need to show patience, unlike cricket there is a lot of competition in this sport.

yes, there are promising signs. if we play to our full potential, I believe that the team could win a bronze in the WC/olympics.

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1 hour ago, Gollum said:

1st time since rankings were introduced (2003).

Recently beat Netherlands twice, Belgium once. Today lost to Belgium but played well. Wonderful to see, never thought I would see this day. 

View image on Twitter

Our coach Graham Reid has been very good, previously did excellent work as head coach of the Aussies. Hope our federation doesn't fire him after a bad result like they have done with almost all our previous good coaches. Need to show patience, unlike cricket there is a lot of competition in this sport.

Ind always produced good attacking players (midfielders and forwards) every now and then even in the low points. but, at least to me, the biggest improvement is in our defensive midfielders and defenders.

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1 hour ago, Gollum said:

1st time since rankings were introduced (2003).

Recently beat Netherlands twice, Belgium once. Today lost to Belgium but played well. Wonderful to see, never thought I would see this day. 

View image on Twitter

Our coach Graham Reid has been very good, previously did excellent work as head coach of the Aussies. Hope our federation doesn't fire him after a bad result like they have done with almost all our previous good coaches. Need to show patience, unlike cricket there is a lot of competition in this sport.

I cannot wait for India to dominate hockey again.  One of my favorite sporting memories is from 1986 when India beat Pakistan 6-3 in Hyderabad.  Pargat Singh, Mohinder Pal Singh, Thoiba Singh and my favorite Mohammed Shahid wove cobwebs around a strong Pak line-up.  

 

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13 minutes ago, Vijy said:

Ind always produced good attacking players (midfielders and forwards) every now and then even in the low points. but, at least to me, the biggest improvement is in our defensive midfielders and defenders.

Defence has improved a lot but not happy with our midfield. 

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1 minute ago, Gollum said:

Defence has improved a lot but not happy with our midfield. 

I only meant that it was improved to some extent than before. there is clearly a long way to go before beating likes of belgium, oz, netherlands, argentina consistently. oz for instance have likes of ogilvie, zalewski, ockenden (?) etc in midfield whereas dutch have bakker, kemperman and that a**

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55 minutes ago, LordPrabhzy said:

We really need to invest in sports like Hockey and Football so this indian population has something else to watch and participate in apart from the cricket nautanki..

people do watch football quite a lot, but only foreign teams. besides, breaking into the football scene is immensely difficult since it's probably the most widespread sport in the world. even qualifying for WC is highly difficult - italy didn't make the cut in last WC despite being 3-time winner.

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4 hours ago, FischerTal said:

did you hear about the Indian Mens Volleyball team? almost beat Australia in the qualifiers. I think we will see major progress in the next decade. 

In volleyball many matches are closely fought, often minnows give some fight but ultimately lose. I think we have some talent but won't get my hopes high. We won a set against Australia and then lost in straights to South Korea, lost in straights to Qatar. We are barely top 15 in Asia which is a weak continent when it comes to this sport. Rankings don't lie, we are behind Pakistan and Sri Lanka :facepalm:. No chance of becoming world class for many many years.

 

Some highlights for those interested...

 

 

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Kalinga stadium is a gem of a venue, all foreign teams praise the facilities so much. World class sports complex, even our track & field athletes train there. Never thought this would be possible in a poor state like Odisha, well done Patnaik babu. His thrust towards exposing the adivasi population to sports will pay rich dividends for India. Those folks are brave/tough, lot of natural talent and high pain/stress threshold....look at the history of full back in Indian hockey, starting from Michael Kindo who was a honey badger in our 1975 WC triumph, forgotten hero. 

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Keeping the rankings aside,  as per my limited knowledge of the Sport there are three tough teams Australia, Netherlands and Germany...  So you cant win a medal without defeating one of the teams which is already a difficult task,  then throw in the new Giant on the Scene Argentina,  then there are semi decent sides like Spain,  Belgium,  Great Britian so winning a medal gets more and more difficult.  The National team cant have appeal throughout the country without winning anything significant. 

Edited by javier26
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43 minutes ago, javier26 said:

Keeping the rankings aside,  as per my limited knowledge of the Sport there are three tough teams Australia, Netherlands and Germany...  So you cant win a medal without defeating one of the teams which is already a difficult task,  then throw in the new Giant on the Scene Argentina,  then there are semi decent sides like Spain,  Belgium,  Great Britian so winning a medal gets more and more difficult.  The National team cant have appeal throughout the country without winning anything significant. 

Belgium is the best side in the world right now, also world champs. Germany has declined somewhat, Argentina though very good struggles against us, NZ is our bogey team and even Malaysia/GBR trouble us esp in big matches.

 

In order of difficulty for Team India:

Aus>>>>>>Bel>>Ned>NZ>GBR>Ger>Mas>Arg=Esp

 

Only team we will find impossible to beat is Australia, match-up issue, Argentina loves playing Australia but mostly manages to lose against us. 

 

Also umpiring is in general quite biased against us, I don't like talking about these things but with fair officiating we would have beaten the Dutch in the previous WC QF. Also that Asian Games farce against Malaysia where refs wore Malaysian jersey throughout the match. 

Edited by Gollum
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Beat Aussies in shoot-out after 2-2 RT. Lost 3-4 to them before this. 

So in last 6 matches against top 3 teams in the world:

we beat Netherlands and Aussies once each via shoot-out (imp cos shoot-out has been a weakness for this team )

we beat WC finalists Belgium and Netherlands once each in RT (Amazing esp the former)

we lost narrowly to Belgium and Australia once each

 

Great going. In April/May we travel to Europe...

2 against Germany

2 against Great Britain

 

Not just imp for the FIH Pro League but with Olympics coming soon, great to lock horns against the best sides.

 

Standings[edit]

Pos Team Pld W SOW SOL L GF GA GD Pts
1 23px-Flag_of_Belgium_%28civil%29.svg.png Belgium 6 4 1 0 1 19 11 +8 14
2 23px-Flag_of_the_Netherlands.svg.png Netherlands 6 2 2 1 1 17 17 0 11
3 23px-Flag_of_Australia_%28converted%29.s Australia 6 2 1 2 1 19 16 +3 10
4 23px-Flag_of_India.svg.png India 6 2 2 0 2 17 15 +2 10
5 23px-Flag_of_Spain.svg.png Spain 8 2 0 1 5 19 27 −8 7
6 23px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png Germany 2 1 1 0 0 7 3 +4 5
7 23px-Flag_of_Argentina.svg.png Argentina 4 1 0 2 1 12 9 +3 5
8 23px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png Great Britain 4 1 0 2 1 9 10 −1 5
9 23px-Flag_of_New_Zealand.svg.png New Zealand 6 1 1 0 4 8 19 −11 5
Edited by Gollum
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