India jr. women's hockey team skipper Preeti opens up on maiden Asia Cup title

India women's junior hockey team recently created history by winning the Asia Cup title. The Indian team beat South Korea 2-1 in a captivating final in Kakamigahara, Japan to lift their maiden tournament trophy. The win also ensured them a berth at 2023 Women's Junior World Cup in Chile.

India Jr. skipper Miss Preeti recently spoke exclusively to WION about how the team fought back after the practice match loss against Japan and how they learned from their mistakes from a drawn game against South Korea to clinch the title.

"Our coaches supported us a lot after the team felt low following the loss against Japan in a practice match. They showed the video footage to help us identify the mistakes and helped us rectify them," said Preeti.

"We then started winning our pool matches and our confidence grew. We started believing in our dream of winning the gold," added Preeti.

The skipper also credited senior women's coach Janneke Schopman for giving the confidence to players wherever required and telling the team to keep things simple by just repeating what the players had done during practice.

"She told us play each game like we had played in practice matches and not think much about the opposition as it would cloud our minds with lot of questions," Preeti said about Schopman. The skipper further said that the senior team's coach told them to "just repeat whatever you have done in practice and told us that we are a quality team to make us feel confident whenever we felt low."

Speaking on the strategies in the final against South Korea, Preeti said, "the coaches helped us analyze the shortcomings from the previous game we had drawn with South Korea after trailing 0-2. We were told to play person-to-person defence whenever the ball came in our half. The strikers and mid-fielders were tasked with pressuring the opposition into making a wrong pass and intercept them in the mid-field. Basically, just don't repeat the mistakes from that drawn game," said Preeti.

When asked what was the moment which made the team feel that they can go all the way and win the whole thing, Preeti said giving confidence to young players who were playing at the big stage for the first time was the key.

"Some of the young players felt bad whenever we conceded the goal but the coaches, support staff and senior players ensured that the players don't feel low. We constantly told the young ones during the game breaks to look forward, play freely and not dwell on mistakes. They eventually felt confident and played well in the final even after we conceded a goal after taking a 1-0 lead. We were determined to win and spoke about it during the break in the final and we felt proud achieving ourgoal at the final whistle," concluded Preeti.

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