Madurai: Indian junior men’s team head coach P.R Sreejesh believes it will be important for the team to give their 100 per cent and maintain their confidence if they aim to win the Junior World Cup.
The Indian team is set to take on Switzerland here on Tuesday in what will be their final league game of the FIH Junior Men’s World Cup 2025. India’s match against the 26th-ranked Swiss might be their only game in Madurai; they are well-positioned to top their group and advance to the knockout games in Chennai.
“When you are preparing for the Junior World Cup, it’s always important that you give your 100 per cent and you dream about winning that. So, I think it’s really important for us to keep that confidence high and just to play the normal game to win the tournament. That’s it,” Sreejesh told IANS while speaking of India’s performances and chances of winning the tournament.
The Indian Junior Men’s Hockey Team started strongly with a 7-0 victory over Chile in their first Pool B match and followed it with a dominant 17-0 win against Oman to clinch their second straight victory.
While India’s performances have been dominant, Sreejesh did not count any competitor out and said that all teams are equally good and capable of beating any opposition on a given day.
“See, Germany is a good team. We’re expected to meet them somewhere in the semis or finals. So, I mean, I don’t know how the journey is going to be, because all these top nine teams are good enough; they’re equally good enough to meet anyone on a given day,” he added.
Speaking further, Sreejesh said the team will take it one game at a time and will not make any early assumptions about future results. “So we’re not predicting anything; we’re just focusing on the next match, the last league round match. Then we will look after the quarterfinals and then think about the future,” he concluded.
(IANS)
