'Just do yourself a favour and show up': India women's hockey team coach Schopman's message that did wonders

“Just do yourself a favour and show up.” This was India’s chief coach Janneke Schopman’s message to her wards ahead of the must-win Pool B FIH Women’s Olympic Qualifier match against New Zealand on Sunday. Schopman gave the message after India lost 0-1 to the United States in their opener on Saturday and a loss or draw against New Zealand would have dented their hopes of qualifying for the Paris Olympics. But the Indian women dished out “near-perfect” hockey to tame New Zealand 3-1 in their second match. “I said that no one’s perfect. We are going to make mistakes but that doesn’t matter. We just have to play and said to them ‘just do yourself a favour and show up today’. The biggest message was we need to connect as a team and we need to play together and I think they did that today,” Schopman said after the win. “It was close to perfect. We defended really well. New Zealand is a difficult team to play against because of their high balls. We could have awarded ourselves with one more goal. it shows where we are and it shows where we want to go in this tournament.” The Dutch termed the win as team effort. “Everyone was good today. It was a complete team effort. The individual strengths of the players they showed and everyone played to their strengths. “Today we had so much pressure because we knew that we can’t lose and even a tie is probably not enough. We all know what is at stake but I said to them ‘you owe to yourself to play hockey today. Let’s play hockey today and then see what happens’.” Schopman said they failed to click as a team against the USA. “I don’t think there was a shift in the mindset, yesterday we were not good and struggled as a team. We fought and tried, but couldn’t click. Last night the girls had a very long team meeting. I think it was just a matter of figuring out how to play hockey again,” he said. Salima Tete was fantastic for India against the Black Sticks as she played all around the pitch to create chances for her team. “We have some injuries, so we have to be flexible. Salima is a very good player who can play in multiple positions. I told her to switch her positions and it became very difficult for opponent because they don’t know where she will end up,” Schopman said. India will play Italy in the final pool match on Tuesday.