Indian football team’s winless streak continues with 1-1 draw against Malaysia
The Indian football team's winless streak this year continues as they played a 1-1 draw against the lower-ranked Malaysia at Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad.
Under the captaincy of Manpreet Singh, Indian men's hockey team displayed fighting spirit in the group stage of the Hockey World League Semi-finals in London. But India's chief coach Roelant Oltmans feels that boys need to keep the spirit alive ahead of their quarter-final clash against Malaysia on Thursday.
"Malaysia is a good side and no opponent can be taken lightly," Oltmans said in a statement on Wednesday.
Recently at the 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, Malaysia had shattered India's dream of making it to final after beating them by 1-0. India had to settle for the bronze medal from the tournament that concluded in May this year.
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In the last group stage match at the HWL Semis, India went down to The Netherlands by 3-1. That was a shocking defeat for the ‘Men in Blue’ as they outclassed Scotland (4-1), Canada (3-0) and Pakistan (7-1) in their previous group stage matches.
India have scored 15 goals from four matches in the tournament so far, third most after Argentina and England who have 20 and 19 in their respective kitties.
"This has been a good aspect for us with the team scoring some fantastic field goals and I am pleased with how the forwards have done so far. However, we must get better and better with each match and still there are some areas of concern such as starting well and starting consistently well," commented the India's coach.
Oltmans added that India can't afford to make any mistake at this stage of the tournament. "We need to play with caution and give no room for mistakes because even a little bit of complacency in the knockout stage will put us out of the tournament," he said.
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