Who will India face in the men's hockey semifinals at the Paris 2024 Olympics?

The Indian men's hockey team came up with an inspired performance to get the better of Great Britain via a shootout in the quarterfinals of the men's hockey event at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Sunday (August 4).

Despite being reduced to ten players for over 40 minutes following a red card picked up by Amit Rohidas, Craig Fulton's team defended admirably to force a shootout that was eventually won by the eight-time champions.

Even as Belgium and Australia were knocked out of the competition by Spain and the Netherlands respectively, the Indians had to await the result of the fourth quarterfinal to know who they would be playing in the Olympic semifinal.

In a late-evening quarterfinal at the Yves-du-Manoir, Germany edged Argentina 3-2 in a pulsating game to earn the right to take on India in the second semifinal of the men's hockey event on Tuesday.

Much like the Indians, the Germans had a roller-coaster campaign in the pool stages that began with an 8-2 win against hosts France before Andre Henning's team went down 0-2 to Spain.

A 5-1 win against South Africa was followed by a narrow 1-0 victory over the Netherlands. Germany beat Great Britain 2-1 in their last pool game.

The Indians are well acquainted with the prowess of players like Mats Grambusch, Lukas Windfeder, Christopher Ruhr, and Martin Zwicker but will be most wary of Gonzalo Peillat's famed drag-flicking abilities.

Christopher Ruhr and Justus Weigand have scored 4 goals for the Germans thus far in Paris even as Peillat was on the scoresheet in the quarterfinals against his former team, Argentina who he propelled to Olympic glory in 2016.

India's Harmanpreet Singh is currently the joint-leading goalscorer at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The drag-flicker gave his team the lead off a penalty corner in the quarterfinals against Great Britain.

Germany were denied a fourth successive Olympic podium finish in hockey by the Indians at Tokyo 2020

The Germans have been the most successful hockey nation at the Olympics after India and Pakistan having won 3 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze medals.

India and Germany have taken each other in big games at the Olympics several times with the first clash of the hockey giants happening in the final of the 1936 Berlin Olympics where the Indians triumphed 8-1.

More recently, the Germans registered three podium finishes in a row with a couple of gold medals in 2008 and 2012 followed by a bronze in Rio 2016.

The Indians, under the tutelage of Graham Reid, stopped the Germans from achieving a fourth successive podium finish by winning the bronze-medal game 5-4 at Tokyo 2020.

The last time the two sides faced off in an Olympic semifinal was back in 1956 when the Indians beat the United Team of Germany 1-0.

India will play Germany at 2230 IST on August 6 while the Netherlands and Spain face off in the first semifinal in Paris.