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Journalism of Courage
His surname carries a lot of heft in the hockey world, and at the FIH Junior World Cup in Chennai, Pere Amat is carrying the hopes of the Spanish Under-21 team as they look to clinch their first-ever title in the tournament’s history on Wednesday. Pere, 21, comes from a family of hockey stars and moves on the pitch like he was born to play the sport. Only, in his case, it is not metaphorical.
Having already made his senior team debut and earned over 20 caps, Pere is the eighth member of the family to have played for the Red Sticks. “Basically, when I was born, my father, I think he gave me my first hockey stick,” Pere tells The Indian Express with a chuckle, but there is photographic evidence of him holding on as an infant.
More seriously, he explains: “Club Egara is where I started to play, it’s our family club in Terrasa. From the age of 3, I have been playing there. My grandfather’s father founded the club in 1935. My grandfather, Pedro, played at three Olympic Games and won bronze at Rome 1960. I went to play hockey with him when I was little, so he was one big part of my hockey. As well as my father, he played too (although he didn’t play for Spain).”
After Pedro won the Olympic bronze in Rome, his three brothers – Francisco, Juan and Jaime – also played at the subsequent Olympics, with Juan winning silver at the 1980 Moscow Games. In the next generation, there was Santi and Pablo, cousins of Pere’s father. Pablo ‘Pol’ Amat is perhaps the most popular of them all, often dubbed as ‘Ronaldinho of hockey’ for his immense creativity, and winner of the FIH Player of the Year in 2008, the first Spaniard to achieve the feat. He represented Spain at five Olympics, from 1996 to 2012, and won two silver medals. Currently, Xavier Gisper Amat is part of the senior team and has played more than 100 times, and Pere has had the chance to share the pitch with him.
When asked if he took up the sport just because he had to, Pere says, “Yes, that’s one part of it but also ever since I started, I just love playing hockey; that passion is natural. No one in my family forces me to. I try to transmit my love for the sport through the stick, playing my own way. I never saw my grandfather play but he tells me always says attack, attack. Sometimes I laugh because he can be a little bit exaggerated, and say ‘don’t pass the ball!” Then I tell him hockey nowadays doesn’t work like this. But yes, I like playing attacking hockey like he did.” And Pere’s admiration for his uncle Pol shines through as well. “I don’t think anyone can play like him because he was so quick on the field. He looked at spaces differently. Really creative, really different from everyone else.”
Just not being from such a royally talented hockey family, it helps that the Amats are also from Terrassa, Spain’s cradle of the sport. One-third of the Spanish team that was in India for the 2018 World Cup was from Terrassa. Even though hockey runs deep in the family, Pere’s father wanted him to try another sport, so he got into playing tennis for a year, but ultimately decided to stick with the stick. Pere also says he is a fan of Dutch star Floris Middendorp and India’s star midfielder Hardik Singh. “He’s so talented with his hands,” he gushes.
Does he feel the pressure of being an Amat? Pere says, “My dream is, of course, to play at the Olympics. But my family never puts pressure on me. People in my family just love hockey as I do. So they say, arrive where you can arrive, and do what you can do.”
