FIH Junior World Cup: From 1-3 down, France score seven goals to stun Australia 8-3; Spain beat Belgium as QF race heats up

FIH Junior World Cup 2025: While France’s second consecutive win put them well on their way to the quarter-finals, the Aussies are left with a tricky last pool game against Korea on Tuesday.

The game turned completely on its head in the final quarter as France cut through Australia's defence to score five unanswered goals. (FIH)

In a scarcely believable game of hockey, France stunned Australia 8-3 at the FIH Junior World Cup in Chennai on Saturday, coming back from 1-3 down to score seven unanswered goals. It looked like anybody’s game at 3-3 after three quarters but France struck early and forced Australia to remove their goalkeeper to chase the game and ended up scoring into open net thrice late on.

While France’s second consecutive win put them well on their way to the quarter-finals, the Aussies are left with a tricky last pool game against Korea on Tuesday. Six pool toppers and two best second-placed teams go through to the last-eight stage. The Aussies led 3-1 at one stage with goals from Matthew Hawthorne, Patrick Andrew and Ian Grobbelaar after France scored the game’s first goal through Victor Saint-Martin in the 9th minute.

But it was all France from that moment on as far as goal-scoring is concerned, with James Liddiard making it 2-3 and Tom Gaillard levelling it at 3-3 heading into the final 15 minutes. The game turned completely on its head in the final quarter as France cut through Australia’s defence to score five unanswered goals. Gaillard scored his second goal and Hugo Dolou too struck twice, while Gabriel Piole, Malo Martinache were the others to get on the scoresheet in the last quarter. Australia’s strategy of taking their keeper off to chase the equaliser cost them heavily as they go into the final day of pool play with a -3 goal difference.

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Amirul Islam’s second hat-trick of the tournament engineered Bangladesh’s comeback from a three-goal deficit to hold Korea to a 3-3 draw in the other Pool F fixture. Even though it doesn’t help either team’s quarterfinal hopes, Bangladesh impressed once again after giving a tough fight to Australia the previous day.

Earlier in the day, last edition’s bronze medallists Spain beat fellow Europeans Belgium 2-0 to register their second victory and put a foot in the quarters – leaving the Belgians to play a win-at-all-cost game against Egypt in their last Pool D fixture. The result means Belgium are likely to be one of the two best second-placed teams to reach quarterfinals, and could face one of the top sides from the pool stage.

The Netherlands put themselves at the door of the quarterfinals with a comprehensive 6-0 win over Malaysia, which puts the European giants at top of Pool E with six points from two victories and a match against Austria left to play. England too laid down a marker, as they fired on all cylinders in their must-win second game of Pool E to hammer Austria 13-0, with ‘Player of the Match’ Kaden Draysey and Henry Markham scoring hat-tricks.

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How will the quarterfinals line-up be decided?

After the end of the pool stage, all 24 teams will be ranked according to the position they finished in their respective groups. Six teams that finish on top of the pools will reach the quarterfinals directly. The remaining two spots will be decided between the two best second-placed teams. After two rounds, the six teams topping the groups are Germany, India, Argentina, Spain, Netherlands, and France. With England, Australia and Belgium (even Switzerland with two wins out of two) all in second positiion, one of the heavyweights is set to miss out on a spot in the last eight.

(With FIH inputs)