New Delhi,Scorelines can at times deceive you. They don’t talk about ball possession, they don’t talk about the fast, attacking hockey played by the team which has lost; they don’t talk about the scoring chances created by the losers either. But scorelines rarely lie: they tell you clearly which team exploited the chances which came its way to make it count.
Well, that was the story of India’s fight for the seventh place in the Hero Honda World Cup here on Friday evening. And the scoreline: 4-2 in favour of Argentina.
Rajpal Singh’s men played a fast game for the first 25 minutes, dominating the midfield, attacking from both the flanks. They failed to make it count and a silly mistake saw them concede a soft goal. In the second half, they tried to attack again even as Argentina tried to slow down the game. They even equalized through Sandeep Singh off a penalty stroke but what followed was mayhem for the hosts. They conceded three goals in three minutes - captain Matias Vila scoring twice - and the fight was over.
It was as if the Indians had suddenly gone to sleep and had been woken up with a cruel, rude jolt. It was defending at its worst but credit must also go to Argentina for counter-attacking well and exploiting India’s weakness to such deadly effect.
The Indians did fight after that but managed to get just one goal through Shivendra Singh, in the 49th minute. After that Argentina defended well and Indian forwards simply failed to find the way to goal after entering the circle again and again.
So, India had much more possession of the ball, they penetrated the circle much more and yet walked out with nothing to show for it.
Coach Jose Brasa was understandably downcast after the match. "After South Africa and Canada we have conceded the maximum number of goals. This is worrying and we have to work on it. The first goal should not have been conceded. I had asked the defenders to Mark Fernando Zylberberg. They did not. Then those three goals... we have to improve inside the circle. We have to defend much better and also score. We penetrated the circle almost 40 times and got two goals. They went in 10 times and scored four. There’s lot of work to be done in defence and finishing, a lot of hard training," he said.
Brasa also defended his players, insisting they are the best in the country. "We tried out juniors during the Canada series but found out that these players are better. They tried their best here. Hopefully, in the coming months we will see more improvement. Of course, we need to plan our tours well."
Indian captain Rajpal Singh admitted after the match that there was no improvement in India’s performance here. "After the first match, we were expecting to do better," he said. Rajpal was very critical of the team’s defenders and put the blame almost entirely on their heads: "Except Pakistan we conceded at least three goals in every match. How can you expect to win in such a situation?"
