Belgium secured a 4-2 victory over India in their second meeting of the Rourkela leg of the FIH Men’s Pro League 2025-26 on Saturday at the Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium. The result followed Belgium\u2019s 3-1 win over the hosts earlier in the leg.<\/p>\n
Alexander Hendrickx led the charge with a brace, while Hugo Labouchere and Arthur de Sloover also found the net. India responded through Aditya Lalage and captain Harmanpreet Singh but were unable to overturn a four-goal first-half deficit.<\/p>\n
Belgium established control early, earning their first penalty corner in the 11th minute, which Labouchere converted. Hendrickx added a second with a drag-flick three minutes later. A well-worked variation from another penalty corner allowed de Sloover to extend the lead to 3-0 at the end of the opening quarter.<\/p>\n
The visitors continued their dominance in the second period as Hendrickx struck again from a penalty corner in the 17th minute. India reduced the deficit in the 24th minute when Lalage capitalised on a rebound after Abhishek\u2019s initial effort was saved.<\/p>\n
India improve after break but fall short<\/p>\n
India showed greater defensive organisation in the second half and kept Belgium scoreless after the interval. Harmanpreet Singh converted a penalty corner in the 37th minute to make it 4-2 and register his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Goalkeepers Suraj Karkera and Pawan produced important saves to limit further damage, while Belgium\u2019s Loic Van Doren denied India on multiple occasions, including a late attempt that could have narrowed the gap further.<\/p>\n
Despite sustained pressure in the final quarter, India were unable to breach the Belgian defence again. The hosts will conclude their Rourkela leg campaign against Argentina on Sunday at 7:30 PM IST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium secured a 4-2 victory over India in their second meeting of the Rourkela leg of the FIH…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1779,1350,7,1372,1079,1338,1767,1278,1780,1781,1778],"class_list":{"0":"post-1885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-aditya-lalage","9":"tag-alexander-hendrickx","10":"tag-belgium","11":"tag-belgium-hockey-team","12":"tag-birsa-munda-hockey-stadium","13":"tag-fih-mens-pro-league-2025-26","14":"tag-harmanpreet-singh-goal","15":"tag-india-vs-belgium-hockey","16":"tag-indian-mens-hockey-team","17":"tag-pro-league-results-2026","18":"tag-rourkela-pro-league"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}