Hosts fail to convert a penalty stroke and several penalty corners
NEW DELHI: It was an underwhelming performance by India, something the coach had least expected. Considering their bronze-winning performance at the Olympics in August and gold-winning show at the Asian Champions Trophy last month, there was hope that India would put up a spirited show against World No. 2 Germany on international hockey's return to the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium here on Wednesday.
However, that was not to be as the world champions and Olympic silver medallists, playing with almost half-a-dozen new players, emerged 2-0 winners, much to the disappointment of the home fans. Henrik Mertgens (4th minute) and skipper Lukas Windfeder (30th minute) scored for the visitors.
Most of the seasoned Indian players looked jaded from the start - perhaps feeling the pressure at the back end of a hectic season - and dispirited for most of the match. Their misery was compounded by some fine work by the German players, especially the midfielders who did not give much space to the Indians to mount an attack on the opposition goal. And whatever chances came India's way, they went abegging due to some poor finishing or were denied by the ever alert young German goalkeeper Joshua Onyekwue Nnaji.
The home team struggled to penetrate Germany's circle in the first quarter of 15 minutes. They did manage limited success in the other three quarters, but failed to score. Trailing 0-2 towards the end, India replaced their goalkeeper Krishan Pathak with a regular player in the 55th minute in a bid to intensify their attack, but it was too late by then. "It's always difficult when you're chasing a game because you need to keep the ball and dominate. We did that. But with five minutes to go, when we took the keeper off, we created a bit of more opportunities. But we needed to do that in the first half," India coach Craig Fulton said after the match, referring to the lack of pressure applied for most of the match.
The coach admitted that India lacked the firepower and the team was not fluid. "We weren't fluid. We should have a bit more goal shots. We should be a bit more threatening. I would say the performance wasn't too bad, but there was not much fire up front."
Fulton was alluding to the opportunities his team missed, which included eight penalty corners and one penalty stroke. Despite trying different combinations, the hosts could score from none of the PCs. And the stroke, which India earned when the ball hit the leg of a German defender inside the circle in the 27th minute, yielded nothing.
An off-colour skipper Harmanpreet Singh hit to the left of the German goalkeeper, who saved it comfortably with his body despite diving in the opposite direction.
It was a well-deserved win for Germany who reached the Capital just two days back and hardly had time to train in Indian conditions. Interestingly, their training here on Tuesday morning was the team's first centralised session since the Olympics under coach Andre Henning.
"We haven't had a single training session since the Olympic Games. So, on Tuesday, we had our first session, tried to connect a little bit and get used to each other," coach Henning said. "In Germany it's much colder than here plus there's this time difference. So there were some obstacles, but the guys really managed it extremely well. It was a very typical German performance - good efficiency, high discipline. I'm very happy with this first game."
The coach revealed that the team played as a unit despite some of the players having not met each other before coming here. "Some of them have never played with each other, not even seen each other before. So I was a little surprised to see how well they played together."
