Malaysian Hockey Team Manager optimistic for a better show in the Champions Challenge I knockout’s stage
Malaysian hockey officials are quite confident about the knockout stage of the Champions Challenge I where the Malaysian men’s hockey team will take on India at the Randburg Hockey Stadium, in Johannesburg, South Africa, on December 1.
Malaysian Hockey Team Manager, George Koshy, believes that they can overcome India to secure a berth for the semi-final stage of the tournament.
In his view, the Malaysians will give a tough time to India, the 10th ranked team according to the world rankings.
The Manager observed, “India has improved a lot since we played them in the Asian Games in Guangzhou last year and in the Asian Champions Trophy in China in September. They are playing exceptionally well and have cut down on their tendency to overdo things”.
It is worth highlighting here that the Malaysian hockey team displayed outstanding performances in the last few encounters against India.
Malaysia overpowered India in the semi-final of the Asian Games while the game between the duo in the Asian Champions Trophy ended in a two-all draw.
The manager acknowledged that the Indian team is quite strong as compared to Malaysia in the tournament. He opined that the Indian attacking line is in a good form, it acquired twelve goals from the field thus far in the tournament.
He was also impressed by the penalty corner execution of the Indian team. He stated that the Malaysian players will have to improve their defence in order to thwart attempts from the Indian strikers.
He further stated, “Our team has been too inconsistent. We had a bad start against Canada. We played an open game and lost. Against Japan, we stuck to a close marking game and did well to collect a point”.
Koshy maintained that the Malaysian attackers failed to show their real worth against Argentina where they missed plenty of opportunities.
Malaysia is sitting at the bottom, with two defeats and a draw. It lost the first game at the hands of Canada while managed a two-all draw against Japan in the second game. In the last group clash, Argentina beat Malaysia by 5-2.
Although it will be a big challenge for Malaysia to overcome India, Koshy believes that the team is capable of earning a victory.
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