Odisha will face off against Madhya Pradesh in the semifinals of the 13th Hockey India Sub-junior Men’s National Championship at Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium in Rourkela on Saturday as they look to book their place in the final where they will face off with either Uttar Pradesh or Haryana.
The hosts, with 10 players from the High Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar, had earned a comfortable 7-0 win against Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu in the last-eight stage in front of a sizeable crowd and they are hoping to ride on the home support once again to make the summit clash.
“We are receiving immense support from the home crowd,” said Odisha's Laxminarayna ahead on their semifinal match. “Almost 5000 people had gathered to cheer us on. As a result, we will have an advantage over any other team in that regard.”
In the group stage, Odisha didn’t have any trouble as they beat both Uttarakhand and Maharashtra at ease scoring a total of 30 goals while conceding none. Madhya Pradesh had also won all their group matches scoring a total of 58 goals. Unlike Odisha though, Madhya Pradesh played three matches in the group stage and will surely put up a tough challenge for the hosts.
However, Madhya Pradesh coach Devki Nandan Kushwaha believes it will be quite a difficult task considering Odisha will be playing in front of their home crowd.
“Playing against the Odisha in Odisha will undoubtedly be difficult,” said Kushwaha before adding “but we have recently defeated them and are confident that we can defeat them again.”
As far as their gameplan is concerned, the coach wants the team to attack from the very word go and put their opponents under pressure. “We will try to score goals in the first few minutes of the game to gain an advantage over our opponents. We are preparing in accordance with our initial plan, which we have so far carried out. I’m hoping to do the same in the semifinals,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, in a repeat of last year’s championship, the other semifinal will see defending champions Uttar Pradesh take on Haryana.
