Unbeaten India will look to ride its winning momentum and book a place in the summit clash when it takes on Japan in the first semifinal of the eighth junior men’s Asia Cup hockey tournament here on Saturday.
India goes into the last-four clash on the back of a 2-1 win over the same opponent in its opening pool match. India had defeated Japan, Malaysia, China and Oman. Drag-flicker Harmanpreet Singh has been in brilliant form, scoring nine goals so far. Besides, the Indian forward-line has also shown promise.
On the other hand, Japan’s performance has improved in its last two matches with wins over China in its last group match and Bangladesh in the quarterfinals.
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Harendra Singh, chief coach of the Indian team, said: “We have faced Japan earlier and we are familiar with their game which gives us confidence.
The rest day has given us enough time to figure out the flaws and we have worked on rectifying them.”