After suffering a humiliating 2-5 defeat against Belgium in the Tokyo Olympics men's hockey semifinal, India will face Germany in the bronze medal play-off on Thursday.
Manpreet Singh & Co will need an error-free performance to secure an Olympic medal for India after 41 years when they take on Rio Games bronze medal winners. India's last of the eight Olympic golds came way back in the 1980 Moscow Games. And Germany are the most successful hockey nation in the Olympics after India with four gold medals.
World no.3 India played into the hands of world champions Belgium with their defence succumbing under relentless pressure from the Red Lions to concede a bulk of penalty corners throughout the match.
Going by rankings, there is hardly anything to differentiate between the two sides as India are currently on third place and Germany on fourth. But, Germany would be a tough nut to crack for the Indians. Having lost 1-3 against Australia in the semifinals here, the Germans would be determined to prove a point.
It will be a repeat of the bronze medal clash of the 2017 Hockey World League Finals. Back then, India beat Germany 2-1.
Match and telecast details
Match: Tokyo Olympics, men's hockey, bronze medal match between India and Germany
Date: August 5 (Thursday), 2021
Time: 7:00 AM IST/10:30PM local
Venue: Oi Hockey Stadium - North Pitch, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Olympics is being telecast live on the Sony TEN 2, Sony TEN 2 HD, Sony SIX and Sony SIX HD TV channels in India. Sony TEN 3, Sony TEN 3 HD, Sony TEN 4 and Sony TEN 4 HD is broadcasting Tokyo 2020 in regional languages.
Live streaming of the Tokyo Olympics is available on SonyLiv.
Squads
India: GK - P. R. Sreejesh; DF - Rupinder Pal Singh, Surender Kumar, Harmanpreet Singh, Birendra Lakra, Amit Rohidas; MF - Manpreet Singh (Captain), Hardik Singh, Sumit, Nilakanta Sharma, Vivek Prasad; FW - Dilpreet Singh, Gurjant Singh, Mandeep Singh, Lalit Upadhyay, Shamsher Singh. Varun Kumar (DF) and Simranjeet Singh (MF) were added later following the IOC's decision to allow "alternate athletes" in team events because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Head coach: Graham Reid
Germany: GK - Alexander Stadler; DF - Lukas Windfeder, Linus Muller, Martin Haner, Johannes Grosse, Tobias Hauke, Niklas Bosserhoff; MF - Mats Grambusch, Constantin Staib, Timm Herzbruch, Martin Zwicker, Benedikt Furk, Timur Oruz; FW - Niklas Wellen, Christopher Ruhr, Florian Fuchs.
Reserves: Paul-Philipp Kaufmann, Justus Weigand, Victor Aly.
Head coach: Kais al Saadi
(With PTI inputs)
