Hockey World Cup: Hope men’s team makes up for our World Cup loss, says Rani Rampal
India will take on either Netherlands or Canada in the quarter-final of the Hockey World Cup 2018 and Rani Rampal is confident that hosts have enough firepower to get the better of whoever they face.
It’s been four months since the Indian women’s hockey team lost a quarter-final match to Ireland in shootout and eventually Ireland ended up with silver in the women’s World Cup, but losing the chance to enter the semi-final of the event still haunts women’s team skipper, Rani Rampal, and she hopes the men’s team makes up for the loss by winning a medal in Bhubaneswar.
“We had never won a world cup medal and thought the World Cup outing in England could be historic. But it was not our day and we lost a close match to Ireland. The Asian Games medal was a consolation, but whenever we recall the World Cup quarter-final, it makes us emotional. We could have created history… But the way our men’s team is playing, I am hopeful they will play the final and it would make up for our loss,” said Rani.
India will play the Netherlands in the quarter-final on December 13. Statistics show India have never beaten Holland in a world cup match. “Holland is a good team, but you cannot write India off on the basis of previous stats. The way our team is playing attacking hockey, it can beat any team, including the Europeans.
“It was bad luck that we played a draw against Belgium, otherwise we were dominating. Attack is our strength and the pace of the youngsters has made the men’s team a lethal combination,” said Rani. “My gut feeling is that we will win the quarter-final and play the final either with Germany or Australia.”
On coach Harendra Singh, who coached the women’s team before he took over the reins of the men’s team, Rani said, “He has the ability to bring out the best in our players. He pushes the player to go that extra mile. There are certain things we can’t disclose, because what happens in the locker room between coach and players is not to be shared on public platform. But Harendra’s patriotic talk touches players. There are certain things he speaks that charge you up for the contest.”
