New Delhi: Aiming for their best finish in 16 years, hosts India would find much-improved Argentina a tough nut to crack when the two team's lock horns in the seventh-eighth place play-off match of the hockey World Cup.
The encounter brings along with it a golden opportunity for India to redeem some lost pride after having finished a lowly 11th out of the 12 teams in the last edition of the tournament in Monchengladbach, Germany four years ago.
This will also be eight-time Olympic champions' best-ever performance in the Wold Cup after 1994 in Sydney where they finished fifth. And it should come as an added motivation for the Rajpal Singh-led side against the aggressive Argentines.
The Indians, however, should consider themselves lucky enough to be playing seventh-eighth play-off match against Argentina after having finished their pool stages with just four points out of the five matches.
After the early spark against Pakistan, India slumped to three consecutive defeats against Australia, Spain and England and then split points against a lowly South Africa in their group engagements.
But tomorrow would be a completely new day for Rajpal's men as they take the ground aiming to prove a point that India is slowly and steadily improving.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, March 11, 2010, 14:15