Sjoerd Marijne, chief coach of the Indian women’s hockey team, is surprised that there is so much expectation from Rani Rampal & Co. According to him, the realistic target for the women would be to reach the Olympic Games last-eight stage.

“The expectations in India are very high. If you are realistic, only two countries are lower ranked than us and that’s Japan and South Africa. So, I don’t know on what these expectations are based,” Marijne said during a virtual news conference on Thursday. “I think it is probably because we performed well in the last four years, but we have to be realistic. We are focusing on reaching the quarter finals and that’s realistic. From there anything can happen.”

India, playing their second Olympic Games on the trot, are clubbed with Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, The Netherlands and South Africa in Group A, while Group B consists of Argentina, Australia, China, hosts Japan, New Zealand and Spain.

Captain Rani Rampal was confident that India would put up a better show than Rio where they failed to win even a single match. “No team becomes Olympic champion overnight. Every team starts from somewhere. Earlier the perception was that we lag miles behind the European teams. But in the last four years we have improved a lot in terms of fitness.”