The Indian women's hockey team on Tuesday routed Italy 5-1 to enter the semifinals of the FIH Olympic Qualifiers here, but chief coach Janneke Schopman feels that the scoreline might not depict how tough it was out there in the middle.
India finished second in Pool B behind USA and will now take on Pool A toppers Germany in the semifinals on Thursday. The top three sides from the tournament will qualify for Paris Olympics. "We have learnt from every match.
In the first match, we didn't really play well. Our second game was really good and we were in control. This game against was a bit difficult, we struggled a little bit," Schopman said after the match. "The learning from here is that we actually fought ourselves back into this game and started dominating. "Italy is difficult team to play against, they are very skillfull, play hard.
So lot's of learnings," the Dutch added. Schopman had words of praise for Udita Duhan, who scored a brace on her 100th international match on Tuesday. "Deepika was not in the field for most of the PCs, so Udita was a good option." "Deepika has a good drag-flick, she is flicking really good in training.