Indian Women’s Hockey team head coach Janneke Schopman wants her team to focus on improving and getting better in every game

The Indian Women’s Hockey team completed their two legged clash against Germany in the FIH Hockey Pro League with a win in the shootouts after suffering a heartbreaking shootout loss against a young German side in the first clash. The Germans won the first match 2-1 on shootouts whereas they lost the second game 3-0 against India once again in shootouts. On both occasions, the matches ended in 1-1 stalemates.

After the second clash Indian Women’s Hockey team head coach Janneke Schopman highlighted how her team needs to focus more on improving themselves and their game.  She also admitted that her team should win matches in regulation times and not in shootouts.

“Our focus is to improve and do better in every game, which I think we are doing it. In Saturday’s game, we didn’t start well, but in the next game, we started well. However, in the second game, we got a little bit on the backfoot after losing the video referral and then the PC that went in because a player got sent out,” Schopman said.

“I just reminded the players at halftime that we are actually in the game and you just have to keep working hard and keep to our game plan and win the balls. I think we created enough opportunities. The only thing to say is that we should win in regulation time and not in shootouts,” she added after India’s win in the second match.

India were really poor in the shootout in the first match but they came back strong in the second game. The Indian Eves converted the first three chances, Salima Tete, Sangita Kumari, and Sonika scored from their respective chances at the shootout as India bagged a win. Goalkeeper Savita Punia was exceptional to deny Germany in their first three attempts to go down against the hosts.

There was some noticeable improvement done by the players from the first leg to the second, so speaking on the particular matter Indian custodian Savita shared how players were nervous as it was their first shootout after many years in the first leg so they faltered under pressure.

“Shootout is a situation of pressure. After so many years, it was our first shootout on Saturday, so our players and I made a few mistakes. But, we worked on those errors and thought that we just have to implement what we do in the training if the match heads to the shootouts. So, we worked on our mistakes from the Saturday game and implemented the learnings in Sunday’s game. We have very skilful players in our team and they all were able to score easily,” shared Savita.

The Indian Eves are currently 12 points from six games and are second in the FIH Hockey Pro League standings. They will next take on a two-legged clash against England in FIH Hockey Pro League 2021/22 at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar at 17:00 hrs IST on April 2nd (Saturday) and 3rd (Sunday).