The Japanese women’s hockey team broke Indian hearts on Friday with a 1-0 win at the FIH Qualifiers in Ranchi to qualify for the Paris Olympics. But right in the middle of that Japanese success was an Indian heart that was happy and proud. Japan’s head coach Jude Menezes tightly held on to a cross in his pocket which belongs to his mother and smiled endlessly after the final whistle.  “I just knelt down in prayer and remembered my mum,” Menezes, 51, a Mumbai-born former India hockey goalkeeper, told mid-day over the phone from Ranchi, moments after the hardfought win.

Turnaround after Tokyo