India Women’s Hockey 2024 Olympics qualifiers in Ranchi: Paris ticket just might hang on a knife’s edge

India Women will compete with the US, Italy, and New Zealand teams in Pool B of the 2024 Olympics hockey qualifiers starting on January 13, 2024, in Ranchi. (Photo via X)

It’s the last pit-stop. Eight teams. The top three get a flight-ticket to Paris 2024. Indian coach Janneke Schopman and her bunch of tactically aware (despite lacking that bit of experience), at times brittle, players have a cluster of matches to make it count. Three in the Pool and if they top, then a semifinal and if that victory is sealed, the team will open the bubbly and celebrate reaching Paris.

Worse-case scenario, play that avoidable 3rd/4th spot game that is headlined ‘winner takes it all’.

Understand the oft-repeated word, that elephant on the pitch ‘IF.’ Modern hockey is no more about top teams dominating while the rest look for upsets. Spread across four quarters, it gives every team a comeback opportunity, the chance to be flexible across the three breaks, at times taking the match down to the last quarter, 60th minute, 20-odd seconds left, either of the teams triggering a counterattack or a penalty corner (PC), pushing the game into a shoot-out or an improbable victory.

Rankings hold no fear for most teams as tournaments like the Olympic qualifiers are replete with upsets with low-ranked teams looking for big scalps.

Also read: What's ailing Indian women's hockey, and do we have a real shot at Paris Olympics?

With Germany in Pool A, Schopman would want to top Pool B so India could avoid the FIH 5th ranked team in a semifinal clash. India is 6th in the world rankings. The rest of the teams in India’s Pool B are New Zealand (9th), USA (15th) and Italy (19th). Pool A has Germany (5th), Chile (14th), Czech Republic (25th) and Japan (11th).

It’s a qualifying that India could well win or at least play the final. However, an Olympic qualifying is never about how good you are. What matters is how you play the important moments. Rhythm, momentum is what a coach always aspires for while the opponents coach, the lower ranked team, plays the disruptor and uses the counter to create the demons while you are pushing players up to get early goals and close the match. India as hosts have the advantage as we saw in the Asian Champions Trophy where every India match saw packed houses, ensuring a winning run of seven consecutive matches, eventually lifting the Asian Champions Trophy. It did lift the gloom of the Asian Games bronze and the missing out on the gold, the actual heartbreak was losing out on the direct qualification spot that comes from winning the Asian Games gold.

So, if the frenzy of the fans can lift you, the silence can be deafening when you are a goal or two down. It’s a mixed bag. There is no open and shut case for India in Ranchi.

It wouldn’t be alarmist to admit that the next week or so will decide in a way the trajectory of Indian women’s hockey. For Schopman, it’s also one of those weeks, where qualifying or not will decide not only hers but the team’s future. Having qualified for the last two Olympic Games, a hat-trick of Olympic participation would be good for the sport. Paradoxically, India is looking to be a medal contender in Paris and that would add to the pressure that qualification is not only a litmus test, but it also creates the kind of character that Indian women’s hockey wants to build for the next generation of players. At 2016 Rio, India finished 12th, the last spot. Four years later in Tokyo, it jumped eight places to finish fourth, equalling their best achieved in Moscow ’80.

Indian captain and team goalkeeper, Savita Punia, whose rise to captainship and key player, has also made her more eloquent, says, “We will do our best to qualify for the Paris Olympics, and we will do well in the Olympics as well. For that, the first step is to qualify. Our focus is on how we play in this tournament, and how we train as a team.”

Indian captain and team goalkeeper Savita Punia (Photo via Instagram/@avitapuniahockey)

The injury to experienced forward Vandana Katariya couldn’t have come at a worse time. Katariya’s strength – holding the ball, ensuring non-existent channels being opened in the forward line, a mind that creates opportunities on the counterattack – will be sorely missed. It also means that for opponents like the USA and even Italy, playing ultra-defensive to counter the skills of the Indians will not be a full-time strategy.

Early in the year, one hopes that January optimism, seeps deep into the team. If Katariya’s absence is a concern, Deep Grace Ekka’s non-inclusion weakens the spine at the back, giving opposition forays sharpness. When asked, Schopman’s reply was like a whiplash: “Grace, I think, has to tell herself why she is not here.”

In a qualifying tournament, where opportunities will come from open field play as well as PCs, it’s the latter that raises concerns. Schopman talks about execution. For a team that stands at the cusp of qualifying, still not having a permanent PC flicker is not only a matter of concern but tackling a front that is extremely technical. The men’s Tokyo bronze medallist Rupinder Pal Singh spent time with the team and hopefully, the conversion rate will go up. In key moments, direct or indirect, goals will be crucial.

“Gurjit (Kaur) has a particularly good flick (now, a stand-by in the team). We have some other options. Udita is developing. Then we have Neha, they have a particularly good threat as well. Salima (Tete) is a backup option as well and she has a very good slap shot. Then we have Deepika,” says Schopman, explaining the lack of, or the continuing development of, PC flickers.

India’s first challenge comes on Saturday against the USA where FIH stats show the Americans having a winning percentage of 60 percent against us. Like most stats, it points in a direction without getting into the story. In the last Olympic qualifying, India beat USA over a two-leg match winning 6-5 on aggregate after having won the first leg 5-1. Schopman, in 2019, was the USA coach. That is why the former Dutch Olympic gold medallist would understand the defensive strength that American goalkeeper Kelsey Bing, a Stanford Mechanical Engineer, brings to the side. Bing was part of the team that lost to India in Bhubaneswar and as part of her growing into that goalkeeper’s role says: “You give up goals, but the best goalkeeper is a goalkeeper with no memory. Try not to think about the past, because it will distract you in the present.”

Schopman’s playbook on the ‘past’ has a similar vein. “The past does not tell me anything. We are here now. We are playing this tournament and I know we have a good team. I know we are ready. I think we have done what we needed to do.”

Of course, India and Schopman will not leave anything to chance. Despite the frailties, lacking big-player experience, India, as hosts, with the fans solidly behind them, a midfield that can create a turn-over into a winning move, Savita Punia’s team remain overwhelming front-runner to play the Olympic Qualifying final.