The atmosphere was electric, the contest nail-biting and the result fantastic. India beat defending champions Pakistan 4-2 in a penalty shootout at the Seonhak Hockey Stadium here on Thursday to win the Gold medal after 16 years and book the 2016 Olympic berth at Rio.
It was after 32 years that both India and Pakistan were facing off in the Asian Games final. The last time when the neighbours faced in the 1982 Asian Games final, India were humiliated 1-7 in Delhi.
The high-profile match lived up to the hype created around it as both the teams gave their all to get the better of their opponents, in this case, arch-rivals. The continuous wave of attacks never let any moment of dullness sneak in. The newly-introduced rolling rotation system kept fuelling the fire and the teams were hot on each other’s heels.
Even though Pakistan took the lead in the third minute of the game, India never looked out of the game and equalized in the 12th minute of the second quarter. Both the sides remained locked at the same score for the remainder of the match and the winner had to be decided by the penalty shootout where Indian goalkeeper PR Sreejesh, who stopped two Pakistani players from scoring, emerged as the hero. Four Indians were successful in beating Pakistani goalkeeper Imran Butt, who has been brilliant throughout the tournament. India would have scored all the five goals but Manpreet Singh couldn’t complete the shootout within the stipulated eight seconds and was denied the goal.
“I have been playing for India for the last seven-eight years but I think this is the best moment for me,” Indian captain Sardar Singh said.
“We have qualified for the Olympics. In the last one year we have worked for only one goal, to qualify for the Olympics. And today we have done that. We have a lot of time to prepare for the Olympics now. I hope we can utilise it well,” he added.
India didn’t have a good start in the match as Pakistan took the lead within the third minute of the match. A well-coordinated move by the Pakistani forward line created an easy opportunity for Mohammad Rizwan Sr, who stood unmarked inside the scoring zone and grabbed the chance with both hands.
It was a lesson in the art of finishing for the Indians who have made it a habit of missing the easiest of chances. But, they didn’t seem to learn from this live demonstration too as Ramandeep Singh and SV Sunil missed two easy chances in the dying moments of the first quarter. Those were easy chances for them to level the game but their lack of finishing abilities again denied India a crucial goal.
Conceding a goal in the opening minutes of the biggest match of their lives in recent times was a big jolt for the Indian team. They urgently needed a new plan to break Pakistan’s momentum and equalize. The two-minute break probably gave them the time to collect themselves as they returned with a lot of energy and showed good coordination throughout the second quarter.
After a couple of good moves that kept the Indians inside the Pakistani half for the majority of the 15-minute quarter, India finally found the back of the net in the 12th minute. During one of the several raids, Gurbaz Singh hit the ball hard inside the circle where Kothajit Singh successfully deflected the ball into the goal.
“The crux was the mid-field. We started to play more with the mid-field during the second quarter and created several chances,” India’s performance director Roelant Oltmans said.
The match swung like a pendulum for the rest of the game as both the sides made several unsuccessful raids inside each other’s scoring zone. Both sides got a penalty corner each in those two periods but nobody could convert it into a goal.
“I am really pleased with this team. The players who have been in the team for a long enough time now, like Sardar Singh, have really impressed me. It’s a very big moment for the Indian hockey,” Indian coach Terry Walsh said. The Pakistani coach Shahnaz Sheikh, though depressed, praised his young team for putting up such a good show.
“This is a very young team but they did an excellent job by taking the lead in the third minute only. You need to understand that we haven’t played any tournament in the last 11 months but they performed well here by reaching the finals,” he said.
He felt that both the teams played a good game of hockey where they displayed the classic Asian-style of hockey that had ruled the world for a long time. “There was no difference between the two teams. They scored once, we scored once. They got one (two) penalty corner, we also got one. The scores at the end of the normal course of play were identical,” he said.