A confident India will fancy their chances against lower-ranked Italy when they meet in a quarter-final playoff of the women's hockey World Cup here today
Rani Rampal
India finished third in the Pool 'B' with two points — behind top-ranked Ireland (six points) and second-placed England (five) and ahead of the United States (two) with two draws and a loss. India finished third on superior goal difference.
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Yesterday, World No. 10 India had to earn at least a draw against World No. 7 USA and the two teams played a 1-1 draw, with captain Rani Rampal hitting the target at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre. World No. 17 Italy, who finished second in Pool 'A', will look to make a strong comeback after their morale-shattering 1-12 defeat against World No. 1 the Netherlands in their final pool game.
Rani feels India must take Italy as a serious contender and draw inspiration from their victory at the 2015 Hockey World League (HWL) semi-final tournament where they beat the European outfit via penalty shootout.
"Italy is a good team and they have enjoyed good wins in this tournament too. But we need to go into the match with the self-belief that we can beat them and we must draw inspiration from that tournament where we beat them in a thrilling shootout," Rani said.
"We need to just focus on ourselves and ensure we use our positive points. There's no doubt we need to go all-out if we want to see ourselves in the quarter finals," she added.
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