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Journalism of Courage
At the end of the first quarter, everything was looking rosy for the Red Sticks. Having entered the quarterfinals as the second best team in the pool stage, including an impressive 2-0 win against Belgium in Madurai, Spain were off to a rousing start in Chennai against New Zealand, racing to a 3-0 lead. And then, in what turned out to be a slow-cooked thriller, New Zealand progressively got better, kept clawing their back into the match, and made it 3-3 with less than a minute to go.
The joy in the New Zealand dugout, however, was short lived as Spain won a Penalty Corner with three seconds to go in the match – albeit controversially – and ended up converting it for an incredible 4-3 win in the first quarterfinal, making it to the last four of the FIH Men’s Junior Hockey World Cup for the second straight edition.
“Not happy with how things went after the first quarter. Only happy for the path to the semifinals, but not for the match we played. This is not Spain. I think Spain only played in the first quarter,” was head coach Oriol Puig Torras’ post-match assessment. “After that, we lost a lot of balls and we defended very badly inside the D. When your defence is like that at this level, the result is what you see here. Well, it was our good luck that we got that last penalty corner. But not the best sensations as we reach the semifinals.”
The 2023 JWC bronze medallists (after beating India) have since gone on to end a 16-year-wait for a podium finish at the EuroHockey U21 Championships when they beat powerhouses Netherlands in Terrassa last year. Players like Aleix Bozal, Pablo Román, Nicolás Álvarez have already made their senior debut. And the squad in Chennai look primed to go all the way, despite the blip they encountered against New Zealand.
Unlike the other European powerhouses – Netherlands, France and Germany to name three – the Spanish squad has predominantly shorter players. Their receiving of the ball is slightly different to other teams, as they kneel for a very low center of gravity. “Ya, we are Spanish in the end,” Torras quipped. It’s not uncommon in their sporting setup as even their legendary football teams of the 2000s had shorter but technically skillful players. “Yes, the Spanish culture is fast, technical players. If we can get stronger and physical, we’ll do better. At this level, U21, it is difficult to go to the gym at the University. The players in the national team are professionals, but in the junior team, we have mostly students.”
“The best thing about that is my players are very technical, to move the ball, pass the ball, drive the ball. But the bad thing is that in defence, our players are small compared to the big New Zealand players,” Torras added, when asked about the height makeup of his squad. The winner of the match, however, was struck by their big man Bruno Avila.
Spain’s recent success at the U21 level augurs well for the senior team too, who are constantly improving under Max Caldas, having heartbreakingly finished fourth at the Paris Olympics after losing against Harmanpreet Singh’s India. The secret? “There is no secret, it is hard work everyday,” Torras said, before adding: “We have good luck with the team because there are a lot of Catalan players, and I am from that region as well, so we can train every week twice together. With the distance in Spain, it is difficult to play with Madrid and Santander players. Here I think we have 15-16 Catalan players in the squad.”
