It’s been 41 years since an Indian hockey team won a medal in the Olympics, and now that wait could be over in 60 potentially excruciating minutes on Monday, or it could be extended to August 5th when the bronze and gold games take place must. India, the third-placed team in the international ice hockey standings, defeated Great Britain after their clinical 7-1 loss to Australia in the group stage to justify their placement and reached the semi-finals for the first time since 1976.
However, reaching the gold medal game will not be child’s play for India. There are only two teams in the world that rank ahead of India. One of them gave India a hiding place in the group stage while the other, second-placed Belgium, is their opponent on Tuesday. Australia scored a whopping 22 goals in five games in Group A, while Belgium, also reigning world champions, scored 26 goals in as many games in Group B.
Belgium ended India’s campaign at the 2016 Rio Olympics, beating them 3-1 in the quarter-finals. In Tokyo, they beat Spain in the quarter-finals with the same result, including two goals from top scorer Alexander Hendrickx, who played with a bandage around his head to cover a wound on his forehead.
Belgium is a well-known opponent for India. The two teams played against each other three times during the European tour of India in 2019 and beat Belgium 2-0, 3-1 and 5-1 in the three games of this tour. On another European tour in March this year, India beat Belgium 3-2. But playing against Belgium in a big tournament is a different challenge and so Graham Reid is not going to take these results as a clear judgment of how good or bad their opponents are.
India has consistently scored field goals in four straight wins since losing to Australia. This will come in handy as both Belgium and India have some of the best penalty takers in the world, Rupinder Pal Singh and Harmanpreet Singh for India and Hendrickx, Loick Luypaert and Tom Boon for Belgium.
After the vaunted contingent of shooters failed to win medals in Tokyo, it was the hockey teams that brightened the mood for the Indian squad with a series of positive results that led both the men’s and women’s teams to the climax of Olympic history. Social media also found that after their quarter-finals victory, given the size of the occasion, the men’s team celebrated rather subdued, suggesting that they have bigger goals than just setting tournament milestones.
They led Belgium 3-2 in the head-to-head record at the Olympics, but their last win came in 1968 when the sport was played on grass. Belgium has grown from a fringe team to one of the best in the world and now has experience in winning titles. India could therefore use some of the serenity it showed at the end of the quarter-finals to send the country into an even greater euphoria with a positive result.
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