World Cup Hockey 2018 Final

Dec 16, 2018

After the one-sided Bronze medal match that brought a sense of relief to one and all when the final whistle was blown, the stadium was packed to the rafters with the spectators overflowing onto the aisles, steps and pathways. And it was not without reason. The World Cup Hockey 2018 final promised a methodical technical hockey battle between the three-time Champions, Netherlands and first-time finalist, Belgium.

The Netherlands were the first on the pitch with a purposeful practice session, well ahead of the Red Lions who followed a few minutes later. Given that the Netherlands came out of a tiring but exhilarating semi final that was resolved via the sudden death, I suspect that they wanted to swipe the highs of the previous night and start with a fresh page. The Red Lions were used to many a final and stacked quite a bit of 'silver'ware.

Meanwhile, the crowd snapped up glimpses of their Cricketing hero, Sachin Tendulkar in the glass clad VIP box high up on the Western stand, and up went the chants and cheers. A few boxes to the right  was  the World Cup (err .. replica as we found out later) that the teams were fighting for. The DJ was blasting his usual stuff. After 5 days, I knew his entire playlist and believe me, it was not more than two dozen songs at most. The crowd started countdown from 10 and the Umpires, Martin Madden (who earned his Golden whistle with this match) and Marcin Grochal set the showpiece in motion.

Q1:

Belgium started the attack and made an immediate circle entry from the left and the push to the waiting forward was a bit weak and easily defended by the Dutch. Immediately, the Dutch wizard, Billy Bakker weaved his magic onto the rival D, raced alongside the goal line and off a deflection of a Belgian defender, Vanasch padded the ball away for Billy to steal it and pass it on to Hertzberger who makes an attempt that was padded away out. 

Now, this see saw battle of wits and alternate attacks set the tone for the entire match as it panned out. The entire set of playing 22 were on their toes as a co-ordinated defence one moment changed pace and set a breakaway attack right to the other side, the very next moment. One such turnover from the Belgian half saw 5 or 6 attackers swarm the Dutch D and after the short passing bout, the ball fell to #22, Simon Gougnard who side stepped Schuurman and unleashed a vicious reverse hit that was heading to the top left corner of the goal with Tom Boon deciding to play his version of an overhead badminton drop shot that just missed the goal by millimetres. To be honest, in real time and sitting in the stadium, it appeared as if a goal had been scored. It happened in a flash. That was a close shave and it appeared that Belgium was the team that wanted to take the lead first.

Soon after, in the 13th minute, the Belgian player, Dockier intercepted a ball at the half line leading a counter attack that resulted in the ball being pushed wide off the goal. The Dutch returned the compliment, 30 seconds later with two of its forwards stationed within the Belgian D. Both teams employed tight man-to-man marking even with the frequent substitutions. A workmanlike Q1 by both teams set the tone for the remainder of the match.


Q2:

A co-ordinated Belgian attack that started with a series of back passes to the defence, moved pretty quickly across the pitch to the rival D only to be nipped by an alert Dutch defender. They then switched roles immediately as the Dutch countered. Two minutes later, an aerial pass from the Belgian mid field was mis trapped and wasted. The aerial route was the exit path for multiple back passes. In the 18th minute, a diving stop by the Dutch prevented any damage.  Another Belgian attack was foiled on the goal line.  In the 25th minute, the Belgians began to construct what appeared to be a quandrangular passing sequence but that did not yield any breakthroughs. By this time, the crowd had been sufficiently instigated by a group of Dutch supporters to chant "Holland, Holland", to keep their team encouraged. After all, the Dutch Captain, Billy is a  'home team player' given he showed up for the Kalinga Lancers in the now-stuttering Hockey India League (which was truly a global melting pot of the best Hockey talent around the world).

This game of chess was being played by 22 players on the pitch  dotted by precise and co-ordinated wall passes aimed at retaining ball possession.  Attacks were rebuffed well within the D as a team effort with deft and timely tackles, short and swift passing out of the D and conversions into counter attacks.

In the 25th minute, a Dutch appeal for  a PC was not given as the ball grazed the hand of a Belgian defender inside the D, which was not a foul. With about 4 minutes to go , Denayer Felix from Belgium fed a pass into the D which was not trapped by a Dutch defender and the ball reached van Aubel who struck in a diving reverse hit across the goal mouth challenging Blaak for the first time who padded away to a Belgian attacker who once again passed quite close to the goal. A determined Dutch defence did a 1-2 and with a cricket like straight drive, swatting the ball away to safety. Anxious moments for the Dutch. With about two minutes left, it was now the turn of the Dutch with van Dam making a dash across the Belgian D from the right and managing to push the ball across the goal mouth. However, the ball rose off a Belgian defender and hit Hertzberger on the thigh. The Dutch promptly referred and won a PC. Of the ensuing PC, a criss cross swap of the drag flickers at the top of the D and the ensuing drag was saved and cleared.
The two neighbours went into the lemon break with nothing to separate them. All secrets were seemingly known to each other and each was trying to test the other with pace and swift ball turnovers.
At half time, the crowd had other distractions to attend to. And notably, the sight of Sachin Tendulkar at the edge of the half line giving some TV interview.  The stadium was packed and even the walkways were full of spectators. For the first time in that week, one felt that the manner in which the Organizers had meticulously managed the tournament had gone awry as there seemed to be way too many people than the number of seats in the stands. Coffee and snacks had to wait.

Q3
The quarter starts with the Dutch running down the right flank and a deft hit from Billy which his unmarked team mate fails to trap and the attempt fritters out with the ball going out of the sideline.  The very next minute saw a diving stop by the Belgian defender , Tom Boon.  A close shot at the Dutch goal was blocked by an alert Blaak. A bit of rough play in the 35th minute was waived off by the Umpire. A couple of raids and long hits by the Dutch were defended. This was not a game of just defence and mid field tussles. This was beginning to take the shape of a hit and run fencing match with a lot of jousting and snapping back into defence. What was witnessed on the pitch were precision planning and the defence waiting back and defending well. A spectacular one handed attacking run by the Belgian #22 into the D from the half line was unchallenged, dribbled almost up to the goal post and fed back towards the top of the D but there was no team mate to capitalize on it. The waiting Belgian attackers were expecting a goal mouth pass and not a pass back. Thinking at that fast pace and perhaps without much verbal communication did not seem to help. As this classic mind game continued, there was some amount of shoving and pushing and running into each other. However, the notable point was the players weren’t stopping and complaining and seemed to take this jousting as par for the course. There was hardly a sign of despair at being pushed and they were quickly onto their tasks.
With about 5 minutes ago, Belgian Wegnez sent a beaut of a pass to the extreme left to Dockier who unleashed a powerful hit but failed to break the deadlock as it was wide off the post.  Just at the end of Q3, the Dutchman, Pruijser found some space on the right and shot in a powerful reverse hit but it went wide off the far post.
Q4
The Dutchmen came out guns blazing at the start of the deciding quarter with five of their forwards operating in full press.  A couple of overlapping runs did not yield much. The Belgian team fell back efficiently to thwart the Dutch attacks. It was gritty, fast paced hockey with varying attempts to break the ice. The crowd was getting restless with the two evenly matched teams playing very similar styles of hockey unable to create any waves.
Netherlands launched yet another attack in the 52nd minute only for it to be fouled. A solo run by the Belgians in the same minute fizzled out as the ball ran out of the goal line.  A brilliant piece of dribbling by the Belgian captain, Briels , with about 3 minutes to go was probably the best chance to settle the encounter in normal time. He got past two defenders on the goal line, drew Blaak out of the goal and sent the ball goalbound only for the Dutch defender Baart to swipe the ball firmly across the sideline. A feeble request by the Belgians for a referral was promptly rejected by the Umpire as they had lost their referral in Q2 itself. With about 10 seconds to go, a full press by the Dutch led by Billy on the right flank was stopped on the baseline by the Belgian defender and frantically pushed out. Tom Boon showed some brilliant 3d skills at the corner flag and ran down the clock to set up a penalty shoot out for the first time in a World Cup Final.

Statistics show that the teams had shared ball possession evenly and had almost same number of shots on goal and circle penetrations. And just 2 PCs and 1 green card for the whole match showed the resilience of the defence on both sides.

Both sets of players shook hands with the neighbouring player and basically went away to plan for the lottery.
The shootout commenced with Jeroen Hertzberger of the Dutch, side stepping a rushing Vanasch to slot in the first goal. Van Doren then rushes down to the left onto the goal line only to make several attempts to get past Blaak and fails.
For the 2nd push, The Dutchman Pruijser tries to shimmy to the right and winds up running straight into Vanasch who pushes the ball with this stick before the attacker can hit the ball, chases the ball outside the D dives and swipes the ball across the 25. Total commitment and no half measures by Vanasch. Felix Denayer  from Belgium needed to score in order to capitalize on the Vanasch save. Despite getting past Blaak on the left, he seemed to overrun the ball and Blaak cheekily pulls the ball literally from under Felix'  feet and sends the ball out of the D.
1-0 after 2 pushes in favour of the Netherlands.
Jonas de Geus took a business like run into the D, side stepped a diving Vanasch, appeared to take a reverse hit and instead dribbles the ball for an easy  tap into an empty goal to send the Dutch 2-0 up. Florent van Aubel from Belgium had to score to keep his team in the hunt. The onus is now on van Aubel to keep the Belgians in the game! You can now cut through the tension with a knife! The crowd is split between the two, with the majority backing the Reds, understandably. This time, Blaak runs upto the penalty spot and  Florent seems to do a 360 but  fakes, turns left and reverse scoops into the goal to keep the scoreline down to 2-1. The crowd erupts. What joy!
Seve Van Ass then attempts a straight forward run past the keeper to the right and pushes out much to the joy of Vanasch.  Victor Wegnez then rushes in displaying the temperament of a troubled teenager who is undecided on which model of mobile phone to choose in a store. Wengez goes left and then right, seems to lose control, goes on the reverse , turns and  fires in a powerful slap into the net to level the scores 2-2. The crowd can’t bear the tension any more. They’re on their feet. Who can sit through this?

It was now down to the last of the five regulatory shoot out attempts by van Dam Thijs.  He keeps the ball close to him and pushes the ball onto the pads of Vanasch. The ball is free for a moment in front of the goalie and van Dam attempts to swing at the ball only for Vanasch to hit it away with his stick. It was now all for Belgium to kill the encounter and canter away with the title.  Arthur de Sloover moves to the left with his back to the goal and dribbles across to the right with Blaak trying to pad away only to find Arthur  scoop the ball into the goal sending the Belgium team into raptures and rushing towards Arthur. While the players were mobbing Vanasch and Arthur, the organizers rushed onto the pitch with the paraphernalia of the award ceremony - carpets and makeshift stage props on the pitch! There was chaos all over and whilst the crowd was cheering, Blaak sought a referral for obstruction and a foot foul. Replays showed the ball clearly clipping a foot and it was now going into sudden death with the goal disallowed.

The drama was accentuated by the confusion of the organizers having to clear the pitch of all paraphernalia. One moment, the World cup was seemingly won by the Belgians only to be taken back. Cruel!

With the order reversing, it was now the turn of the Belgians with Florent van Aubel stepping up for the first sudden death attempt. Florent moved left and Blaak made an attempt to swipe the ball with his stick but Florent kept the ball, side stepped to the right and slapped the ball into the net. This was referred again by Blaak only for it to be disallowed and the goal stood.

It was now up to Hertzberger to keep the Dutch alive in this Russian Roulette. After approaching the center, he goes left and attempts to hit the ball, goes further away to the left and then attempts a reverse hit into the goal that goes wide and hands Belgium their first ever World Cup win !

On one side were the Belgians erupting in joy and tears while the Dutch camp presented a forlorn look after giving it their all and being put through a do or die sudden death for the 2nd night in a row and falling short this time.

The stadium pyrotechnics went into overdrive and all of them had to be emptied. Such drama and wildly fluctuating emotions. On one hand, the Dutch were leading 2-0, then lost the lead and came back alive through a referral only to lose the shootout.

The Red Lions were deserving winners and they were one of the few teams that remained consistent throughout the tournament. This is a sweet win for the team that has been making courageous attempts at Gold medals in various tournaments and winding up second best. Not this time! 

The Cup was in their hands after being handed over by the FIH boss, Batra along with the Odisha Chief Minister, Navin Patnaik who deserves a lot of credit for the brilliant World Cup. I will reserve that for another post.
The crowd was then treated to almost 15 minutes of spectacular fireworks to bring the World Cup to a close after lots of memorable moments after three weeks of top knotch Hockey.

(editing credit : sheila govindaraj)