The Indian Men’s Hockey Team will be seeking retribution against the newly crowned World Champions Germany in Friday’s FIH Men’s Hockey Pro League 2022/23 match at the newly constructed Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium in Rourkela.
At the FIH Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup 2023, the Indian Men’s Hockey Team, led by star drag-flicker Harmanpreet Singh, lost in the pre-quarterfinal stage. The team will play well in the FIH Men’s Hockey Pro League 2022/23 to try to regain their confidence.
Prior to the game, Harmanpreet Singh, one of the three joint top scorers in the tournament with six goals, stated that the Indian team views every game as an opportunity to develop as a unit and perform better in the future, despite the difficulty of the situation.
We struggle in every match at this point, particularly against Germany and Australia. Nevertheless, it is advantageous for us to be able to participate in such challenging matches given our focus on the Asian Games. “We will ensure that we improve as a team by playing such games and give our best in the future,” Harmanpreet stated.
In the meantime, Hardik Singh, who was recently promoted to Vice-Captain of the Indian Men’s Hockey Team, stated that, despite the fact that India’s strategy will evolve in the future, their fundamental principles will not.
The fundamental values and principles of the team will not change, but our strategy will be slightly modified. In addition, in addition to concentrating on our attacking style of play, we will work on maintaining possession,” Hardik stated.
India, currently fourth in the points standings, hosted New Zealand and Spain in October of last year at the Kalinga Stadium during the FIH Hockey Pro League 2022/23. The Indian Men’s Hockey team kicked off the season by defeating New Zealand 7-4 and 4-3. They drew 2-2 and fell 3-2 to Spain.
On the other hand, the Germany Men’s Hockey team, which just won the FIH Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup 2023, will be overjoyed because they are fifth in the FIH Men’s Hockey Pro League 2022/23 with eight points from four games. They won the tournament earlier this year.
Against the hosts, the German team, led by Mats Grambusch, will want to build on their recent success and compete to the fullest. Grambusch, on the other hand, is of the opinion that the team needs to keep getting better with each passing day and that the World Cup victory is over.
“We won both of our quarterfinal and final games in shootouts in the FIH Odisha Hockey Men’s Reality Cup 2023, and the rest of our games were extremely close. We prevailed in the semi-final in the final few seconds. Consequently, Germany Men’s Hockey team captain Grambusch stated, “We have to improve what we can improve, and that’s going to be our focus.” We’ll be focusing on this because we’ll be playing a lot of games against good teams like Australia, India, Belgium, and the Netherlands before the 2024 Paris Olympics.”
“We honestly have no interest in continuing to hold the title or being the World No. 1 group. “We want to be as successful as possible,” he continued.
At the FIH Hockey Pro League 2022/23 in November of last year, Germany won two matches. They defeated Argentina 3-0 and Belgium 3-2 after a grueling battle. Germany’s men’s hockey team lost to Belgium 0-1 in the other match before winning Argentina’s penalty shootout.
India, Germany, and Australia will each play twice in Rourkela for each of the tournament’s six matches.
India and Germany will meet for the first time on March 10, and they will meet for the second time on March 13. India will take on Australia, the current Commonwealth Games champion, on March 12 and 15. Each and every game will begin at 1900 p.m.
