Bengaluru: India will compete in opposition to Spain, England and Wales in Group D of the upcoming FIH Odisha Hockey Males’s World Cup 2023 Bhubaneswar-Rourkela. The match can be performed from January 13 to 29.

Talking after the draw, Chief Coach Graham Reid stated, “The swimming pools within the FIH Hockey World Cup and the Olympics are all the time tough. Each workforce is there to win. We simply performed England and Wales within the Birmingham  2022 Commonwealth Video games and the video games have been of the very best high quality. To high that off with Spain who’ve been enhancing within the final 12 months will make the first-round video games very tough. As is the case with the finals qualification system now in place you additionally must preserve one eye on the cross-over pool and it actually does not get any simpler there.”

When requested if enjoying Spain within the FIH Hockey Professional League 2022-2023 would assist in the preparatory journey forward of the FIH Odisha Hockey Males’s World Cup 2023 Bhubaneswar-Rourkela, Reid stated, “It all the time swings and roundabouts whenever you play video games in opposition to future opponents within the large tournaments. Do you attempt methods that you could be need to use within the FIH Hockey World Cup or do you present nothing and miss that chance! They’ll study as a lot about you as as you possibly can study them.” 

Within the Odisha Hockey Males’s World Cup Bhubaneswar 2018, the Indian Males’s Hockey Staff bowed out within the quarter-finals. And this time spherical, the Chief Coach is hoping that the Indian Staff will enhance their World Cup report. 

“As I stated earlier than, England are a world-class workforce and they’re enjoying an excellent model of hockey for the time being. However so are we and the essential half in regards to the FIH Odisha Hockey Males’s World Cup 2023 is that we now have to maintain our minds within the second and concentrate on every side of the sport. It’s a very completely different workforce than it was 4 years in the past, with completely different experiences and a few completely different personnel. We’re wanting ahead to the World Cup and enjoying in entrance of our residence crowd.”

Reid additionally congratulated the Indian gamers and the Indian Ladies’s Staff Chief Coach Janneke Schopman for being nominated for varied classes within the FIH Stars Awards. 

The Indian Males’s Hockey Staff Defender Harmanpreet Singh, who gained the FIH Participant of the Yr Award within the 2020-21 version of the FIH Stars Awards, has been nominated for a similar award but once more. Together with the Defender, PR Sreejesh (FIH Goalkeeper of the Yr Males), Savita (FIH Goalkeeper of the Yr Ladies), Sanjay (FIH Rising Star of the Yr Males), Mumtaz Khan (FIH Rising Star of the Yr Ladies), Graham Reid (FIH Males’s Staff Coach of the Yr Males) and Janneke Schopman (FIH Ladies’s Staff Coach of the Yr Ladies) have additionally been nominated for FIH Hockey Star Awards 2021-22.

“One factor that I can say with some surety, is that every of them acknowledges that Particular person awards are a results of hours of arduous work put in by lots of people. They develop into reflections of workforce efficiency,” he signed off.