Did India Hockey Coach Craig Fulton Take Veiled "Structured" Dig At Pakistan After 4-0 Thrashing?

A day after Pakistan hockey coach Muhammad Saqlain said that India were not playing a 'structural game' at the Asian Champions Trophy, his team were dealt a 4-0 loss by the hosts in Chennai on Wednesday. "India is not playing structural hockey, but Pakistan is. India is simply playing over fitness," Saqlain said during pre-match media conference. "Structural hockey is played by Korea and Japan. India has been playing behind the ball mostly and relying mainly on counter-attacking," he added.

Interestingly, after the win, India head coach Craig Fulton hailed his side's "structured" and "consistent" game in the 4-0 thrashing of arch-rivals Pakistan in their Asian Champions Trophy hockey match and he's looking for his players to continue in the same vein in the semifinal against Japan. India's comprehensive 4-0 win in their last round-robin league match on Wednesday knocked Pakistan out of the tournament. Unbeaten India topped the league table with four wins and a draw and play Japan in the semifinals on Friday.

"We did play a good-structured game. We did miss a few chances in the fourth quarter, but we did well overall," Fulton said during the post-match press conference.

"We had some good consistency in each quarter, which we did the same during the Japan game (on August 4 which ended in 1-1 draw)."

Japan sneaked into the semifinals ahead of Pakistan on better goal difference, though the two sides collected five points each. Japan had minus two goal difference as against minus five of Pakistan.

In fact, third-placed Korea also secured five points but they have a goal difference of minus one.

"We also had more penetration into the circle in each quarter than Japan. So, it will be about maintaining consistency and not doing