Belgium and Germany boys make early impact in Pool A as Spain top Pool B

24th July 2016: Day 1 of the U18 EuroHockey Championship got underway at 2 venues in Cork, with all the teams in action. 

U18 Boys EuroHockey Championships, Pool A
Belgium 8 (C Freyling 2, A De Chaffoy 2, B Gougnard 2, W Ghislain, L Sidler) Czech Republic 0
Belgium swept to a strong opening win in Pool A over the Czech Republic to start their EuroHockey Youth Championships in great fashion.

Cyril Freyling gave them the perfect start, converting a fourth minute penalty stroke. From there, they were frustrated for much of the first half as the Czechs defended well with Michal Kourimsky making fine saves and Jaroslav Kasl keeping things together.

But a yellow card for Ondrej Dubina reduced their numbers and almost immediately Achille de Chaffoy added the second goal, stealing the ball from the two centre backs and pumping home. A lovely umpiring advantage allowed Loic Sidler to slip a pass to Boris Gougnard to slide home the third goal of the half.

It broke the Czech’s resistance and Belgium raced clear after the break. De Chaffoy added the fourth, Freyling whipped home a penalty corner and Gougnard applied a brilliant reverse-stick finish to make it 6-0. William Ghislain got the seventh before the Czechs had their best moment when Denis Tomes hit the post from a corner. Belgium countered direct from there with Sidler finishing off the eighth goal.

Speaking afterwards about the result, Belgian coach Simon Letchford said he was “really happy” with the performance. ”We did miss a fair few opportunities but given the preparation we have had over the last few weeks, it was important for us to get off to a strong start.”

Looking at the wider competition, he is targeting a top four place. “At Euro Under-18s, it’s a balance between performance and outcomes. For sure, we would be disappointed if we don’t make the semi-finals and anything after that is a bonus.”

Germany 5 (J Schiffer 2, F Bock, E Knobling, T Henrichs) Ireland 0
Germany’s corner proficiency under-pinned their excellent start to the campaign, scoring from three set-pieces to see off home hosts Ireland.

They did not have it all their own way, though, as Matthew Nelson almost nicked in for an early goal, through one-on-one with Alexander Stadler but the goalkeeper stood tall from the first major chance.

The Germans were moving the ball well, however, using their platform to launch overlaps down the two sidelines to create chances. They went ahead from their second corner in the 13^th minute, Fedor Bock flicking in from a switch move.

Despite Raphael Hartkopf’s yellow card, Germany extended their lead when Jan Schiffer went direct from another corner, 2-0 at half-time. Eric Knobling finished off an excellent right wing move for the third 10 minutes into the second half when Linus Muller wriggled free and his pass was met perfectly by the attacker.

Schiffer flicked in an unorthodox personal second to make it 4-0 from the sixth German corner. Teo Henrichs then completed the scoring with a brilliant lobbed finish from the right baseline, finding the tightest possible angle.

Irish coach Gareth Borland said of his team’s performance: “We gave them a good battle in the first half and were well in the game but gave them too many soft short corners.

“We are happy with this as a start point, happy with the boys and their attitude, working right the way until the end of the game.”

Spain 5 (M.Recasens, S.Cortes, A.Tello 2, G.Quijano) Italy 2 (M.Malucchi, P.Lago) 

Italy dominated the first half of the game and were rewarded with a goal courtesy of Malucchi in the 13th minute. With no more scores on the board, it looked like a possibly low scoring game! But that all changed in the second half as Spain came alive and they attacked at every opportunity, the Italian keeper did well until a PC in the 41st minute driven home by Recasens. Italy, unperturbed settled back into the game and went ahead again via Lago. After that a tired Italy lost their control of the game and Spain dominated, drawing in the 48th minute via Cortes and then 3 quick goals in the 63, 70 and just before the whistle secured the win. Head Coach Alejandro Siri was pleased with a win in the first game of the Tournament. “It was a difficult match against a strong team, they made it difficult for us, but in the second half we created lots of opportunities, we believe in what we train and put that on the pitch.” Speaking about the rest of the pool games he agreed that they have tough games ahead, against Netherlands and England with this new generation team – but in the end he concluded “they have to play hockey!”