Asian Champions Trophy: India Beats South Korea. Reached In The Final
- By Thetripurapost Desk, Beijing
- Sep 16, 2024
- 470
The Indian men's hockey team continued its excellent performance and made it to the final of the Asian Champions Trophy by defeating South Korea 4-1 in the semi-finals.
India will now face China in the final, which has entered the title match for the first time by defeating Pakistan in another semi-final match.
The Paris Olympics bronze medal winning Indian team has performed brilliantly in this tournament and remains undefeated.
The final match will be played between India and China on Tuesday, where the Indian team will be looking for a record fifth title.
Captain Harmanpreet Singh scored two goals for India in this match, while Uttam Singh and Jarmanpreet Singh scored one goal each. The only goal for South Korea was scored by Jihun Yang in the third quarter.
India maintained the lead against South Korea from the first quarter itself. First, Uttam Singh scored a goal to put India ahead by 1-0.
After this, the Indian team dominated in the second quarter as well and doubled the lead. Captain Harmanpreet Singh scored a goal for India in the second quarter. In this way, India had taken a 2-0 lead over South Korea by the end of the first half.
Indian men's hockey team maintained its lead against South Korea in the third quarter as well. South Korea tried to make a comeback after the half time and scored a goal but could not get ahead of India. While Jihun Yang scored a goal for Korea in the third quarter, Harmanpreet Singh also did not take much time to score the third goal for India.
After this, Captain Harmanpreet Singh scored the second goal of the match as India took a 4-1 lead against South Korea. South Korea tried to take the lead till the end but could not succeed.
This was the 62nd time India was facing South Korea in an international hockey match. The first time both played against each other was in 1958 in the Asian Games in Tokyo. Then India defeated South Korea 2-1.
So far India has won 39 matches and South Korea has won 11 matches. At the same time, 12 matches ended in a draw. The last match between the two before this was played during the pool stage of this Asian Champions Trophy, where India defeated South Korea 3-1.
India, however, maintained this momentum in the semi-finals of the Asian Champions Trophy as well.