admin Manpreet Singh is on cloud nine as under his leadership, India won the FIH Olympic Qualifiers in 2019 and has now won the award for the FIH Player of the Year. He is the first person from the country to win the prestigious award. The award was started in the year 1999. Belgium’s Arthur van Doren and Argentina’s Lucas Vila finished second and third in the vote count.
Manpreet debuted for the blue jersey in the year 2011 and has made 260 appearances for the nation. He is the captain of the team competing in the FIH Hockey Pro League. He also participated in the London Olympics 2012 and Rio Olympics 2016 and now will lead the team in Tokyo 2020.
Manpreet, while talking about the 2019 season, said: “If you look at our year, we did well in every tournament we participated in. Be it the FIH Series Finals in June or the test series in Belgium where we played the hosts as well as Spain and beat them.
“Our biggest goal in 2019 was to book our berth at the Olympics,”
He added, “We have plenty of youngsters in the side who will be flying as part of the team for the Olympics and it is important they are ready for it.”
Eva de Goede has been adjudged 2019 FIH Women’s Player of the Year. She is the captain of Netherlands International Hockey team and is a midfielder. She was ahead of Argentina’s Carla Rebecchi and Germany’s Janne Muller-Wieland in the count of votes.
She has been representing her nation since 2006 when she made her debut and has played over 230 matches for it. She got the award for the second year in succession.
She has, in her tally, 2 Olympic Golds, 2 World Cup Golds and 3 Champions Trophy gold medals.
Her favourite moment of the 2019 season was the FIH Hockey Pro League Grand Final in Amsterdam. Taking about it, she said: “It was a beautiful crowd, it was beautiful weather and we won the gold, which was special. I just love to play those games.”
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