India Beat Spain 3-0 in Olympic Men’s Hockey

By Odisha Sports Bureau On Jul 27, 2021

Tokyo: Dragflicker Rupinder Pal Singh scored a brace as the Indian men’s hockey overcame a demoralising defeat in the previous match to cruise past Spain 3-0 and inch closer to a quarterfinal berth at the Tokyo Olympics here on Tuesday. Drubbed 1-7 by Australia in their last match, India produced a spirited performance against world No.9 Spain and scored through Simranjeet Singh (14th minute) and Rupinder Pal Singh (15th and 51st) to record a comfortable win in their third Pool A match at the Oi Hockey Stadium.

India, ranked fourth in the world, had earlier defeated New Zealand 3-2 in their opening fixture. Spain, on the other hand, are yet to register a win in the competition. Spain drew 1-1 against Argentina before losing 3-4 to New Zealand. The Indians will next play reigning Olympic champions Argentina on Thursday. For any team it is always tough to recover from a morale-shattering loss within a day, but India looked more organised and sorted against Spain on Tuesday.

Despite the win, India’s chief coach Graham Reid said the team needs to work upon a lot of grey areas, like conceding penalty corners, ahead of their remaining matches. “Better result today, but a lot of things to work on from an improvement perspective. The fact that we gave too many corners, that’s always a concern when that happens. But the team did really well in terms of defending,” he said.