Indian men's hockey team loses to Belgium in semifinals

Indian men’s hockey team loses to Belgium in semifinals of Tokyo Olympic 2020.

After 49 years of losing to Great Britain, India reached the semifinals of Olympic hockey. The whole country was dreaming of getting another gold from the eight-time Olympic gold medalist India.

However, that dream came to an end when they lost 5-2 to world champions Belgium in the last four men’s hockey. But men’s hockey from Tokyo is still expected to win medals. Because in the last four, Team India can still win the bronze medal.

The whole country has sat in front of the TV since Tuesday morning. Therefore, every Indian seemed to be hoping for the victory of Manpreet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself tweeted congratulations to the Indian team as well as watching the game.

And from the beginning of the match, the game became frozen in attack-by-attack. Belgium went ahead in the second minute of the game by scoring from the penalty corner.

But the Indian team paid for that goal at the last moment. Manpreet scored a goal to give India a 2-1 lead. Then Men in Blue goes ahead again.

At the end of the first quarter, India was leading 2-1. In other words, they scored three goal in the first eight minutes. But Belgium came back in the match in the second quarter.

Alexander Hendricks scored to bring the world champions back to parity. Neither Belgium nor India scored in the third quarter.

However, in the fourth and last quarter, Belgium started playing with great rhythm. They took penalty corners one after the other. In the end, Hendricks led the team with a goal from the penalty corner.

Even then, the power of the world champions was greater than that of India. Hendrix then scored another goal to secure Belgium’s victory.

Belgium put the last nail in India’s coffin by scoring another goal in the end. India lost the match 5-2.

At the same time, Belgium reached the final of men’s hockey at the Tokyo Olympics. On the other hand, Manpreet is still hoping to win bronze despite losing gold this time.

In the other semifinal, India will have to play against the team that loses to Australia-Germany.