Bhubaneswar -- Indian women's hockey coach Sjoerd Marijne hailed his team's 5-1 win against U.S. in their first Olympic qualifier as the most "effective" performance by his team since he joined as coach in 2017, but has warned his team not to take things lightly going into Saturday's second encounter.
"You dream about those things, but I think we were really effective and that means a lot," Marijne said after the match. "One of the best goals was from Navneet [Kaur], and the speed of Sharmila [Devi] and Salima [Tete], who are just 18 and 17 years old. Setting up an attack, playing at this stadium for the first time, I think every Indian can be really proud of that. Still I keep saying, we don't have anything yet. We have to recover very fast."
Marijne was critical of his team's first half performance, though, putting it down to nerves. India were playing a major competitive match at home for the first time in over four years.
"You saw the pressure was not good enough. The ball possession was lost too fast, and we gave them too many opportunities. Luckily they didn't make it, because had they converted, it would have been a different match," said Marijne, comparing the lack of energy in India's first quarter performance to his time with the Indian men, when they had looked sluggish in a bronze medal match against a 12-man Germany at the 2017 World League Final at the same ground. "Making the most of opportunities is a quality, and that's what we did very well today. I think the third quarter was our best quarter, as everyone could see. In the last, the nerves were gone, and we played to our potential."
Marijne was quick to caution his team against complacency -- you could see that India are focused on the job at hand, as captain and their most critical player on the night Rani Rampal missed the press conference as she'd already gone into recovery with an ice bath. "You know how fast things can go. The most important thing for us, and that's what we've told the girls too, is that you don't get to Tokyo through today," said Marijne. "[We can only celebrate] tomorrow after the match. We have nothing so far.
"Yes, we've scored, but we have to improve on what we did today. I'm not concerned with results. I am concerned with the performance, and if the performance is good, then the result will follow. That's what we have learned today."