Also Read: It’s day won for Kasatkina!

Edited excerpts from an interview.

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Were you a bit worried going into the Olympics with just one goalkeeper? What if PR Sreejesh got injured?
If Sree got injured, we’d play without a goalkeeper. We had planned for that. We have enough protective equipment for the runners in penalty corner defence. There’s no point trying to use another player as goalkeeper because you’d lose a field player. We tried Sumit [as goalkeeper] previously, but it didn’t work.

Craig Fulton

How disappointed were you with the 1-1 result against Argentina?
It was a difficult game, but we had enough chances to win it. We pushed hard, but unfortunately we couldn’t get the goal. Maybe we could have used one or two more variations in penalty corners to win that match.
 
Why does Belgium trouble us often?
We’ve just started to get to their level. We got some good results against them previously. We drew with them at the FIH Pro League. You have to play your top game against them because they have all bases covered—PC execution, PC defence and a good goalkeeper. We scored one of our best goals against them [a field goal by Abhishek], but then, conceded two very soft goals. We could’ve drawn that game if not won it, but we gave them too much respect on the day.
 
Was the Great Britain game one of the best matches for you as coach given it’s almost impossible to play modern hockey for over 40 minutes with a man short and still end up winning?
Playing with 10 men for 43 minutes for 1-1 and then winning via shootout, is a dream-come-true scenario. We had planned for different situations like if we lost our goalkeeper or a key player to a yellow card… but a red card is so rare. But the team responded brilliantly to it. At full-time with the score 1-1, I celebrated as if we had won the gold medal because I knew we had done so much in that game, there was no way we wouldn’t win it.

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 India scored more off PCs and only three field goals. Do you feel the focus on PCs is curbing field goals?
If you also look at the chances we created, we’d be right up there because our forwards won the most PCs. There is a very small difference between the chances we create and those converted [via PCs or field goals]. In the semi-final [v Germany] we had four clear field goal-scoring chances, not including penalty corners, but all four were off target. Forwards like Sukhjeet [Singh] or Lalit [Upadhyay] do tend to look for PCs more, while others like Abhishek and Mandeep [Singh] will always shoot. You can’t have everyone looking to shoot and no one winning PCs because then [drag flick specialist] Harmanpreet will not get a chance to flick.

Was that victory over Australia a massive mental hurdle crossed?
If you look at the 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medal match result [Australia 7-0 India] or our Tokyo match [Australia 7-1 India] that’s a lot of goals. So this win is definitely a massive mental breakthrough. It’s taken a long time to get the boys to this level and execute against Australia.
 
How much does that 2-3 semi-final defeat to Germany hurt?
We had one or two penalty corner variations and it worked like a bomb. We created four or five really good scoring opportunities, but somehow the ball just didn’t go in. That hurt. We won nine penalty corners, but four were re-awarded, so we scored two from five and that’s a high return. The game went down to the last three seconds, where we could have scored [and taken the match to the shootout].
 
What is your road map heading into the next four-year cycle for LA ’28?
We will give new players opportunities to see how they fit in physically and technically as we build a squad and from there, a new team. We’ve got a good blueprint and from Hockey India’s point of view, the men’s team are on track. We look forward to qualifying for the World Cup [2026 in Belgium and The Netherlands]. That’s our new milestone.