A confident India will fancy their chances against lower-ranked Italy when they meet in a quarter-final playoff of the women's hockey World Cup here today
Rani Rampal
India finished third in the Pool 'B' with two points — behind top-ranked Ireland (six points) and second-placed England (five) and ahead of the United States (two) with two draws and a loss. India finished third on superior goal difference.
Yesterday, World No. 10 India had to earn at least a draw against World No. 7 USA and the two teams played a 1-1 draw, with captain Rani Rampal hitting the target at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre. World No. 17 Italy, who finished second in Pool 'A', will look to make a strong comeback after their morale-shattering 1-12 defeat against World No. 1 the Netherlands in their final pool game.
Rani feels India must take Italy as a serious contender and draw inspiration from their victory at the 2015 Hockey World League (HWL) semi-final tournament where they beat the European outfit via penalty shootout.
"Italy is a good team and they have enjoyed good wins in this tournament too. But we need to go into the match with the self-belief that we can beat them and we must draw inspiration from that tournament where we beat them in a thrilling shootout," Rani said.
"We need to just focus on ourselves and ensure we use our positive points. There's no doubt we need to go all-out if we want to see ourselves in the quarter finals," she added.
Catch up on all the latest sports news and updates here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates
This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
