Tokyo Olympics 2020: Why India has the edge against defending champions Argentina in men's hockey

Argentina had an extremely successful women's hockey campaign at the Sydney Games in 2000. They took the world by surprise once again in 2016 when the men's hockey team bagged gold at the Rio Olympics.

Incidentally, the Rio gold was Argentina's first and only hockey medal. Their previous best edition was a fifth-place finish, back when the team made its debut in 1948.

Not many saw the Rio heroics coming, especially since Pablo Lombi's team managed to win just one of their five pool games in London 2012 and ended up in tenth place after losing the classification match to New Zealand.

Dizzying rise to the top for Los Leones (Argentina)

Los Leones were never considered to be in the same league as Australia, The Netherlands or Germany, having just one bronze each at the Champions Trophy and the World Cup in 2008 and 2014 respectively.

Even so, keen observers of the game noted the fluency of a team that managed a well-deserved draw against Australia in London - thanks to a PC at the death converted by Gonzalo Peillat, who ended up with a tally of 4 goals at the 2012 Olympics.

A couple of years later, the defender from Beunos Aires pumped in 10 goals at the 2014 World Cup in the Hague, helping his side to record a third-place finish. However, the best was yet to come.

At Rio 2016, Peillat was in business as early as Argentina's second group match, converting a couple of PCs against Canada to power his team to a 3-1 win. It was the start of something special and they did not have to look back for the rest of the tournament.

Eleven goals out of a total of 25 scored by Argentina during the course of the tournament was netted by the PC specialist. It included a hat-trick against Germany in the semifinals that saw Argentina thrash the Germans by a 5-2 margin.

Much like Australia's Chris Ciriello, who loved scoring three in a row in the big matches, Peillat propelled the Argentinians to Olympic glory, assisted by the wily strategist Carlos Retegui.

Argentina's sliding fortunes since Rio 2016

After winning silver at the Hockey World League Finals in Bhubaneswar in 2017, Retegui (nicknamed Chapa) called it a day when Argentina's single-man goal machine failed to gel well with new coach German Orozco.

Discord was out in the open, and the Olympic hero was conspicuous by absence at the inaugural Hockey Pro League in 2019 where Argentina finished fifth with six wins from 14 games.

Things went from bad to worse as the Rio gold medalists could notch up just two wins (against Spain and New Zealand) out of a total of 12 games played at the 2020 Hockey Pro League.

The defending champions can scarcely be considered favorites going into Tokyo 2020, but the sheer experience of the side is mindboggling considering the fact that no fewer than seven players have capped over 200 internationals.

The 42-year-old veteran goalkeeper Juan Manuel Vivaldi has been donning Argentine colors ever since 2001 while captain Pedro Ibarra, who has 307 caps, will spearhead one of the most experienced bunch of defenders in the tournament.

Indian youth against Argentine experience at Tokyo Image Ctsy: Hockey India

The Indians have had a decent record against the Rio champions - being one of the few teams to beat Argentina in the group stage at the 2016 Games.

The 2-1 victory at the Olympics was followed by a 0-1 defeat on a rain-soaked pitch at Odisha's Kalinga Stadium in the semifinals of the 2017 Hockey World League Finals, with Gonzalo Peillat scoring for his team in both outings.

A fledgling Indian side put up a brave fight against a full-strength Argentina outfit in the 2018 Azlan Shah Cup before going down 2-3 thanks to a Peillat hat-trick. However, not even the great PC maestro could save his team against a resurgent Indian team at the Breda Champions Trophy later that year.

India's very own PC talent, Harmanpreet Singh, opened the scoring at Breda and despite Peillat leveling things up, Manpreet Singh scored the winner in a tournament where the Indians went on to win the silver medal as opposed to Argentina who finished fourth.

A close finish, more recently at the Hockey Pro League encounter earlier this year, will concern the Indians after it took a last-gap inspirational effort from captain Manpreet to restore parity with the Indians trailing 1-2 until the very last minute.

A PC manufactured by Manpreet Singh was converted by Harmanpreet and the Indians went on to win the resultant shootout.

A more comprehensive 3-0 win was to follow for the Indians in the second leg encounter, which was also to be their last international match before the Olympics with their remaining Pro League games being called off on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While experts will argue that any previous results could be thrown out of the window in the context of the Olympics, the Indian camp would like to believe they hold the edge going into their fourth Group A encounter after having played New Zealand, Australia, and Spain,.

Graham Reid's boys will do well to be wary of the extremely creative Lucas Vila, who will be aided in Argentina's attacking third by Maico Casella, Lucas Martinez and young Nicolas Keenan.

Both teams would have gotten well into the groove by the time this group game is played out on July 29 and an absorbing fixture between two hockey heavyweights should exciting to watch for the fans.

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Team Argentina:

Goalkeeper: Juan Manuel Vivaldi

Defenders: Pedro Ibarra, Leandro Tolini, Juan Martin Lopez, Matias Rey

Midfielders: Nahuel Salis, Diego Paz, Ognacio Ortiz, Agustin Mazzilli, Lucas Rossi, Thomas Habif, Agustin Bugallo

Forwards: Nicolas Keenan, Maico Casella, Lucas Vila, Lucas Martinez.

Reserves: Nicolas Cicileo, Santiago Tarazona, Emiliano Bosso

FIH Ranking:

India - 4

Argentina - 7