Maddie Hinch sought to play down her latest Olympic shootout heroics, after another incredible batch of saves sent Great Britain into a semi-final showdown with the Netherlands.
Goalkeeper Hinch repealed four Dutch penalties to seal the gold medal five years ago in Rio, and today repeated the trick in a quarter-final shootout win over Spain.
The match ended 2-2, Spain twice coming from behind after goals from Hannah Martin and Grace Balsdon. Hinch then saved penalties from Clara Ycart, Begona Garcia Grau and Georgina Oliva Isern as Martin scored and Anna Toman missed for Team GB.
There was high drama at Spain’s fourth, Beatriz Pérez Lagunas hitting the post before a re-award was ordered following a review. Sure enough, Hinch pulled out another stop to keep the British title defence on track, Sarah Jones converting for 2-0. The game against the Dutch starts at 2.30am BST on Wednesday.
“As a keeper, I don’t think you should fear them; it’s just a chance for you to do your part,” said Hinch of how she views shootouts. “I didn’t fear it today, I felt ready, I felt I’d done my work so I could have let all five in, I could have saved all five, it’s just how it goes and it certainly helps when we’re putting them in the back of the net as well.”
Advertisement
“I’m quietly confident in my ability to do it. But it doesn’t always go like that, I just take it one shootout at a time, celebrate each save, get the hype going, it’s all important to play into the Spanish heads. I’m glad we didn’t have any more because I was getting a little tired.
“How much time do I spend on shootouts? A lot! A lot of homework as well. I had a bit of an idea of what they might do: we actually lost to them with England in a shootout not too long ago and I know what I did wrong then.”
The 32-year-old, who plays her club hockey in the Netherlands with HC Tilburg, has the enviable quality of being able to come across as completely at ease, whatever is going on in her head. To appear any more laid back, she would have to be horizontal.
“It’s good I look like that; that’s the idea,” she laughed. “I’m quite relaxed, of course I’m a little nervous, I think nerves are a good thing, but I don’t feel like I have anything to lose, I’m not trying to prove anything, I’m just trying to do my job.
“I don’t feel invincible, definitely not. I just enjoy them but honestly we’ve lost a lot of them as well and I think I’ve had a lot of experience in the moment. As a goalkeeper it’s a pretty unforgiving position so you might as well enjoy these moments that you have, put it all out there and have no regrets.”
Advertisement
Britain are a much-changed side from five years ago, under a different head coach, Mark Hager. They are yet to consistently hit the high notes in Tokyo, leading many to question their readiness to go all the way again. The Netherlands, who beat New Zealand 3-0 in their quarter-final, are heavy favourites to back up their 2018 World Cup success.
“We’re here to win and you don’t win without beating the best team in the world so I’m glad we’ve got Holland,” argued England’s Lily Owsley, part of the team who lost 1-0 to them in the pool stage here. “It’s an amazing challenge: the bigger the team, the bigger the challenge. You come to the Olympics to play those kinds of games. Pressure makes diamonds so we’ll give it a good go and hopefully come away with a result. The more people that write us off the better: we’ll show them.
“I don’t think we see ourselves necessarily as the Olympic champions. I think there’s only maybe six of us remaining from that side, we’ve had a different coach, different players. I’m sure for the people who won it back there who have retired, it probably feels like yesterday but for us still playing it feels like another lifetime.
“I don’t feel like we have that pressure, so much has happened since then. We’re here to keep that medal and we’re here to win it and I would do anything to make the girls on this team feel what we felt five years ago and for Mark to feel what we felt five years ago. We owe it to the team that did it, we owe it to the girls that have never felt that. I would do anything to make that happen.”
