New Delhi: It was a team that had seemingly lost its way. Having failed to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics, relegated from the FIH Pro League, and bogged down by internal tensions and rifts over the last couple of years, the Indian women’s hockey team arrived at the World Cup in the Netherlands and Belgium with more questions than answers.
Returning to the setup in January, after previously guiding the team to a historic fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, chief coach Sjoerd Marijne engineered a stunning turnaround. They should have won last night’s game.” Within months, he helped the squad qualify for the World Cup and secured the Nations Cup title that earned them a ticket back to the elite Pro League. But as former India women’s coach Neil Hawgood pointed out, the puzzle is not yet complete. Hawgood noted the absence of a quintessential match-winner While praising Marijne’s rapid turnaround. “Where are Rani (Rampal), Jaspreet (Kaur), Vandana (Katariya), who score goals?
“Last night’s game, they were missing a game breaker, which is something they have had for the last 14 years; they had someone who could break the game apart,” Hawgood, who helped India qualify for the Olympics after 36 years at Rio 2016, told HT.
