Ipoh (Malaysia), May 26: India coach Michael Nobbs said his team will take inspiration form the victory over South Korea to put up an improved show in tomorrow's Azlan Shah Cup match against fancied Great Britain, who were held to a draw by a late Malaysian resurgence.
“Even though we got the winning goal in the last minute of play, it was a character performance and we deserved the victory,” said Nobbs, relieved that the tide had turned after the disastrous opening outing against New Zealand.
Five-time champions India suffered a crushing 1-5 loss to New Zealand, but were revived by the 2-1 win over South Korea, Asia's highest-ranked team.
Nobbs expressed disappointment that errors continue to creep into the Indian game, often when they are under pressure.
“We all need a victory to keep going and it was a satisfactory performance, but a few errors still crept in after a fine show in the first half of the match,” he said.
He also asserted that India were back on track in the tournament after S.K. Uthappa's final minute deflection on a Tushar Khandekar pass clinched them victory in a tight encounter.
“Uttapa scored an unbelievable deflection goal. It was nice to see the boys not giving up right up to the last second,” he said.
Nobbs said there were aspects the team was still working on, but the discipline in our game's structure against South Korea showed an improvement on the previous outing.
“It takes time to learn a style of play that we've only just started to use,” Nobbs said as India braced for the encounter with Great Britain.
“It is very frustrating to see the errors creeping into the Indian game. That we need to sort out. Looking back at our match against New Zealand here, everything that was talked about and practiced was forgotten and the players were back to the old style of play.”
