India's route to Paris faces a stumbling block after loss to USA in opening clash

The mention of Paris, the City of Love with a penchant for art, fashion and culture, comes across an unusually high number of times through the streets of sleepy and nippy Ranchi. On every billboard that greets and informs you about the FIH Women's Hockey Olympic Qualifiers that kicked off in the city on Saturday, the words "EN ROUTE TO PARIS” are imprinted in bold, capital and large fonts.

- Rutvick Mehta

India’s route to the 2024 Paris Olympics, though, encountered a huge stumbling block to begin with, as the hosts went down 0-1 to lower-ranked USA on the opening night at the Marang Gomke Jaipal Singh Astroturf Hockey Stadium here on Saturday.

The crushing defeat threatens to derail the women’s team’s hopes of just getting to the Paris Games after a memorable fourth-place finish in Tokyo three years ago. It also leaves them with no scope for another slip-up in their second match against world No.9 New Zealand — they beat Italy 3-0 in their opener — on Sunday.

On paper, India (ranked 6th) are nine spots above USA (15th) but they hardly played this encounter, skill-wise or mentally, like a higher-ranked team. On paper, India had more scoring opportunities (in every aspect: shots on goal, circle penetrations, penalty corners) but they hardly looked like scoring one. On the field and on the day, the Janneke Schopman-coached team just did not turn up.