After Monday’s rest day, the Asian Games men’s competition was in action again on Tuesday with its third round of matches. China kept their eye on the semi-finals with a win over Sri Lanka, Bangladesh overcame Singapore, India moved past Oman and Korea emerged victorious from the important clash with Japan.
Starting off the day, China took home an easy 6-0 win against Sri Lanka to stay at the heels of the hockey heavyweights Pakistan and India. Sri Lankan coach Nadeem Ahmed pointed out that the result is not unexpected, given the difference in world rankings, and that his team is in the middle of a long-term development process. He looked forward to the next challenge, saying, “The match against Oman is our chance to redeem ourselves. We’re revising the game plan, both in attack and defence, and we really want to win this one”.
The match between Bangladesh and Singapore was an ardent battle between two evenly matched teams. Bangladesh were better able to capitalize on their opportunities to win by a narrow 2-1 margin but head coach Alam Naveed still lamented the many missed chances, saying the goal had been to score five or six goals. “We need more, more concentration, more focus on the ball.”
In the encounter between India and Oman, Oman played very well, especially in the first half, standing compact in midfield and causing a fair amount of mishandling of the ball by the Indian team. In the end however, the strong and much more experienced Indian team overpowered the young Omani side to win 7-0. India’s head coach Terry Walsh was especially pleased with the performance of his back line which kept their opponents to just one shot on goal.
The day concluded with the key encounter in this round of matches, as Korea and Japan faced off for the top of the table in Pool A. In a hotly contested match with few scoring opportunities for either side, the home team emerged as 4-0 winners based mostly on standard situations, converting two penalty corners and one penalty stroke. With today’s three points, Korea overtake Malaysia to claim the top of the table in Pool A.
The 2014 Asian Games, officially known as the XVII Asiad, is the biggest sporting event held in Asia and is widely recognised as the second largest multi-sport event after the Olympic Games. The event is held every four years, with Hockey being one of 36 different sports set to feature in the Games. The Hockey competition in Incheon will be the biggest in the history of the Games, with ten men’s and eight women’s teams all battling it out for glory and Olympic qualification at the Seonhak Hockey Stadium.
The tournament - which offers a place at the Rio 2016 Olympic games to the men’s and women’s Gold medallists - is the first major international hockey competition to feature the groundbreaking 60 minute format, with the sport moving from two halves of 35 minutes to four 15-minute quarters with 40-second time-outs when a penalty corner is awarded and after a goal is scored.
The additional time-outs for penalty corners and after goals ensures that the new 60-minute format is actual playing time, eliminating the dead time associated with penalty corner set up while also allowing for teams to enjoy their goal celebrations. To learn more about the rule changes, click here.
Results
Tuesday, 23 September 2014 – Men
China – Sri Lanka 6-0 (2-0)
Bangladesh – Singapore 2-1 (2-0)
Oman – India 0-7 (0-2)
Japan – Korea 0-4 (0-2)
To keep up with the hockey in Incheon, join us at http://www.asiahockey.org/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/asiahockey and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/asia_hockey. To find out more about all the action at the Asian Games Incheon 2014, please visit the official event website http://www.incheon2014ag.org/index.
