Keeping the winning streak alive India was on the berth of the finals of FIH Series only the improvising Japanese team fighting in the way equally to reach the desired Finals. India had defeated Uzbekistan in the last game of the group stage with a magnificent 10-0 score to secure the semi-final berth. On the other hand, Japan had beaten Poland with a 6-2 goal in a crossover game. Due to being the hosts of the 2020 Olympics, Japan already had a place secured in the qualifiers, while India was just one win away from their Olympic berths as well, win the empathetic win against Japan on 14th June, India secured both berths in a go.
The Asian Champion’s Japan had been going strong in the last few games and slowly paving their way into the FIH Series Finals. Their attacks have been impressive and defence have been hard to break through throughout the game. In the semi’s, Japan started with an early attack leaving the Indian team a bit baffled when in a counterattack Kenta Tanaka passed the ball to Kenji Kitazato who scored fired the shot pass Indian goalkeeper as Japan secured an early lead in the 2nd minute. India got their game back on track just a few moments later and secured 2 penalty corner and Harmanpreet Singh making no mistakes scores the first one for India from the second penalty corner in the 7th minute. India doubled their lead in the 14th minute when with aground flick Varun Kumar broke Japan’s defence.
Japan kept looking for ways to score and kept attacking and after a while, they managed to get the perfect chance in the 20th minute, as Kota Watanabe scored through another counter-attack to level the scores once more. However, after this, Indian team kept Japan under pressure for the rest of the game as India scored 5 more goals to take a great lead with Ramadeep Singh scoring 2 goals after returning from an injury after 1 year and Hardik Singh, Gursahibjit Singh, Sagar Prasad made their efforts count cruising India to 7-2 win against Japan to reach FIH Series Finals as well as securing a berth at 2020 Olympics.
