India’s hockey coach Roelant Oltmans was disappointed at the large number of unforced errors in the team’s shock 0-1 loss to Malaysia, which knocked them out of the final of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup on Friday.
Indian needed to win by two goals to secure a place in the final, but crashed to a 0-1 defeat as Shahril Saabah scored the all-important goal through a penalty corner in the 50th minute.
“I am never disappointed with result. But today I am very disappointed with the performance. There were too many unforced errors,” said Oltmans.
“We did not take out chances in the first three quarters. Then we had to take calculated risks in the last quarter, but we were not able to force goals,” he said.
“We had to take the risks because of the pressure building from the unforced errors.”
It was during the period India were going all out to score that Malaysia were able to earn the penalty corner that got them the match-winner.
“We had a few chances to score even in the last stages, but it was disappointing that the Indian team was not able to execute the skills on the field today,” said the Dutchman.
Meanwhile, Malaysian coach Stephen van Huizen said his team deserved credit for their outstanding show after suffering narrow losses in the previous two games against New Zealand and Great Britain.
“It was a game of playing for our pride at home after losing three games. We did not plan to disappoint India,” said van Huizen.
“If Great Britain deserves to go into the final, there’s nothing we can do about it,” he said.
Van Huizen said he had expected India to come out attacking as they needed two goals to move into the final.
“We expected India to come at full force. For me this win came against the odds. On any other given day, India could have won had they taken their chances,” said van Huizen.
“We went through videos of India’s matches and we knew they have very good forwards. So, we came up out with a plan to stop India’s momentum.
“Malaysia got several chances and we made good use of one to score the goal,” van Huizen added.
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