Indian Men’s Hockey team captain, Manpreet Singh hailed his players after the Men in Blue’s 3-1 win over Great Britain. The Men’s team secured a place in the semifinals of the Olympics for the first time in 49 years. Manpreet claimed that his players worked so hard that they were on the verge of killing themselves to achieve this feat in Tokyo.
The midfielder believes that the self belief among the Indian players has helped them to get to this stage after such a long time.
“It was believing. Everyone believed in themselves and that was the key today, everyone gave their 100 percent today and they were dying and almost killed themselves on the field,” Manpreet said.
India won Gold at the 1980 Olympics but there were only six teams and they qualified directly to the finals after the round robin format. Hence if we consider the semifinals then we will have to go back to Munich in 1972.
It was disheartening for Indian hockey fans to see their team failing to reach the mark for so many years. But now they have finally made the cut but despite all the celebrations, Manpreet warns his teammates that the job is far from over at the Summer Games as they will go up against World champions Belgium in the semifinals.
“We are so happy because after a long time we are reaching a semifinal. Still, the business hasn’t finished yet. Still, we have two more games so we need to focus, we need to have our feet on the ground and we need to focus on the next match,” he said.
India played really well in their 3-1 win over Great Britain as three of the goals were from the field which is great at this point in time. Players like Dilpreet Singh, Gurjant Singh and Hardik Singh scored for India as they went through to the semifinals. “Everyone played very well. We scored three outstanding goals, the strikers made a good opportunity and the whole team played really well,” Manpreet lauded the players after the win.
PR Sreejesh has bailed out the leaky Indian defence innumerable times in this campaign and Manpreet simply cannot stop praising the experienced custodian. “Unbelievable. You can see him (Sreejesh) always gives us life. That’s why we call him ”The Wall”. It’s always outstanding,” he concluded.
