Antwerp: Indian men's hockey team's chief coach Paul van Ass feels from the word go the Sardar Singh-led side needs to put pressure on the opponents in order to secure positive results in the FIH World League Semi-finals to be held here from June 20 to July 5. The Dutchman stressed on the need to score early goals to put pressure on their rivals.


Indian skipper Sardar Singh during a training session recently. Inset: Paul van Ass 

"The practice matches were a huge learning for the team. While we won the match against France, we narrowly lost to Belgium. But what came out for me from the matches was that we have to increase the pressure on the opponents from the start," Van Ass said. "We need to work on getting more penalty corners apart from looking at the capitalising on opportunities inside the opposition circle.