“Champion!
It was an ambitious play. The following month, they ended the FIH Pro League season with eight losses. They’d missed opportunities to score goals; several players had injuries; they were trolled on social media.
The last time Indian women lifted the Asian Games trophy for hockey was in 1982, when hockey was introduced at the Games. In May 2025, the 20-member team lost four out of their five matches on the Australia tour.
“We were losing every match, and with it, our confidence,” recalls Tete.
Psychologist Ben Wienk introduced team-building exercises: An obstacle course, in which one player led the other blindfolded across the hurdles. But the most important thing to fix was their penalty corner defence. The tide had begun to turn as early as June. Then at the World Cup, they scored two goals against one of their toughest rivals, China, pushing the match to a draw. It was one of many moments in that match that changed everything. There’s been a change in how the team bonds with each other. The women hail from as far away as Punjab and Mizoram. Some came from hockey-loving families; others had to fight with their own families to take up the sport. They learnt that it was okay to open up to one another about their frustrations and worries. They now talk about being homesick or worrying what the coach thinks of their performance. “We discuss everything now. When they’re not thinking about hockey, they like to break out into impromptu Bollywood dance or karaoke sessions. And, Marijne and the players like to prank each other. One time when they were in Malaysia, he made them nervous by telling them they had to record videos of the hotel they were staying in, and talk about its different amenities, for an important assignment. The women took over and were all over the hotel, recording take after take. Then, after they were done, he asked them to check the date. Kaur is the one who’s always lurking behind corners, waiting to jump-scare her teammates. “I love scaring Lalremsiami [Hmarzote] especially. Her reactions are Bollywood-level dramatic. This lesson was put to the test at the Asian Games, when Sakshi Rana passed the ball to Lalremsiami Hmarzote, who was closer to the goal, knowing she would have a better chance at scoring. Arumugam calls it a shift from the strategy Asian teams have usually favoured, in which individual brilliance is the focus, towards a more European playing style, that looks at the game as one coordinated, synchronised effort.
Lombard made them pledge to not eat sweets, chocolates or fast food until the LA 2028 Olympics. The team won the FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup, defeating New Zealand 2-0. They finished fifth in that World Cup, India’s best result since 1974.
And during the second quarter of the Asian Games match in October, Punia, who says she visualises playing matches before she sleeps, judged accurately that China’s Zhang Ying would shoot to the left, and was able to stop it. “We openly share the best and worst times we’ve had,” Punia says. “It was April 1st,” Kaur recalls, laughing. “We’d gone over the motions so many times over the past few months, that it was almost automatic,” says Kaur.
Taeke Taekema, who previously coached the Chinese team, was brought in to teach India’s goalkeepers how to sling the ball low against the ground before flicking it across the field in one sharp, forceful move.
