India women’s head coach Sjoerd Marijne conceded that his side didn’t play its best game in the goalless draw against Australia, which ended its World Cup semifinal bid.
The result meant India, which hasn’t reached the last four stage since the inaugural edition in 1974, will play in the 5/6 classification game instead on Thursday.
Marijne said the plan was to stop Australia from scoring before nicking a late goal, which never came. At no stage in the match did India gather any momentum on the ball, as it made repeated unforced errors.
“Yeah, of course, very disappointing when you are so close to a semifinal at the World Cup. We knew the longer the match would take and the longer we kept them on zero, we always would get our opportunities at the end.
“But in general, we didn’t play our best game. [There were] A lot of technical errors, then you can’t come in the rhythm and that is something we have to look into. The quality was better in the other matches in the tournament, but to create something, you need better technical skills than we did today. I mean with the passing and receiving,” said the Dutchman.
While India showed plenty of fight this World Cup, it has struggled in front of goal, having failed to score in its last three outings against England, Netherlands and Australia – three teams ranked above it.
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“We needed to score goals. [But] we were not close to the goal. We had one Penalty Corner and that didn’t run the way we wanted.
“These things happen and we have to learn from this. Like if you would say five-six months ago, you’re going to play for fifth-sixth position at the World Cup, then nobody would believe us. Now we’re going to play in that match, which I think is good.
“But you always want more. That’s why there’s more disappointment. I think you need to be disappointed because that’s how sports work,” said Marijne.
On whether the team felt the pressure of playing for a first semifinal berth in 52 years, Marijne said, “Maybe it was nerves. I don’t know. It’s a high [stakes] match. It looked like it had to do with nerves and also with energy. I think we can normally bring a higher energy in the game. You can also have heavy legs because of the nerves. But these are speculations from me, I didn’t see the numbers yet,” he said.
Since Marijne’s re-appointment in January this year, the team has been on an upward trajectory. Recent results, which included World Cup qualification, winning the Nations Cup and breaking into the top eight of this tournament.
“I also said to the girls that until now we didn’t have disappointments together. And now this is a big disappointment, which we have to learn from. But on the other hand, you play 0-0, we didn’t concede a goal, which is also very good,” felt Marijne.
Published on Aug 24, 2026
