Indian coach Jose Brasa defended his team’s showing vs Spain, saying the boys lacked experience.

By Anshul Baijal

India's semi-final dreams are virtually over after their loss to Spain on Thursday evening, but coach Jose Brasa refused to blame his players for the poor performance.

"Today we did not play a bad game. We created as many chances as Spain did. But the difference was their big-match experience," said Brasa.

"Mistakes are normal and we are not going to punish the players. Except five or six players, this is the biggest tournament for most players," he added.

The Indian team paid for poor marking and huge gaps in the midfield and Brasa admitted the team will have to pull up its socks. "With just ten seconds to go for half-time, we left Pol Amat totally unmarked. These are school-boy errors," he said.

India's ace drag-flicker Sandeep Singh was also below par, missing six out of seven penalty corners, but the Spaniard refrained from criticizing the former Indian captain.

"Sandeep had done well against the same goalkeeper (Francisco Cortes) in Spain in August last year. But today the goalkeeper was good," admitted Brasa.

Another big disappointment was Deepak Thahur, who is not a 100 per cent fit and has been going through a rough patch, and the India coach admitted that he has been forced to give him more chances in Shivendra Singh's abence.

"We are asking Deepak to play more because of the penalty on Shivendra. Deepak may not be scoring as many goals, but he is an important leader in the team," he said.

India' next match is against the European champions England, who have won three out of three so far. On current form, beating the English team will be no less than climbing Mount Everest, but Brasa insisted that his team can upset England.

"We are getting better each day and if we keep improving we can certainly beat them," concluded the Spaniard.

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