Coach Harendra Singh had a long night after team’s semi-final victory over Australia at the Hockey Junior World Cup, being played at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium in Lucknow.
If India wins, it will become the second nation after Germany to win the Junior Hockey World Cup a couple of times.
It took just eight minutes for them to make the breakthrough courtesy of a sensational backhand strike from Gurjant Singh.
India beat Australia in penalties to advance to the Hockey World Cup Final while Belgium inflicted a penalty loss to Germany to book their berth in the Final. They won the Junior Asia Cup a year ago and also a four-nation tournament in Spain. A runners-up finish for the senior team at the Olympics in 2016 was the culmination of a few impressive performances at global events in recent years, and has elevated the nation’s world ranking to fifth, at the expense of India. But in the second half we gave them a little bit too much initiative to be honest.
Fans who watch the India vs. Belgium hockey match live online will see an Indian team taking a simple approach.
The final of the day between Belgium vs India is set to begin at 6:00 PM IST today on Sunday. “We played good hockey throughout the tournament and we got good support from the Lucknow crowd who supported us in good numbers here”, the senior Indian worldwide added.
For any game to prosper, two factors are vital. But this time they will be upbeat to win the trophy as they will have the home crowd supporting them right from the very beginning.
“We have a lot of potential and the boys who are there with the Federation have worked really hard in the last couple of years to get to this level”. “This ground is a journey for me”, he had said after the semifinal win over Australia.
There could not have been anything sweeter than this for the boys as they defeated Belgium 2-0 to become the King of the Hockey world. And all those qualities were on display on a cool Sunday evening as a capacity crowd egged on the Indian colts throughout the 70 minutes.