With just 7 days to go, we talked with PhD graduate in Engineering and integral member of Real Sociedad de Fútbol, S.A.D’s team for the past 10 years, Patricia Marana Casado.
Her ultimate dream in hockey would be to continue enjoying the sport as long as I can and to continue seeing my young team grow and compete against the best teams in Europe.
Apart from hockey, she holds a PhD in engineering, has hockey helped her in her this high academic career? “I think competing at a high-performance level gives you values like consistency, hard work, commitment, persistence, teamwork and resilience. I believe that these values are replicable in all life aspects so I think that playing hockey has undoubtedly helped me and will continue helping me in achieving any goal I propose to myself.”
Real face GHC Ritm Grodno in their first game, a team that they have not played before “I have not played them before although I have played against other Belarusian teams in the past. But I think that Dutch teams are one step above the rest of the European clubs, so I would say both of them are the “ones to watch”.”
She is very much looking forward to playing in the Wagener Stadium, which no doubt will be an awesome experience.
She believes that the initiative of the EHF to stream all the games helps to have balance in sport “I think that initiatives like this are the ones that make the difference when trying to achieve equality between men and women sport. So I am happy that EHF continues making an effort to live stream women’s hockey so that people back home can follow our journey and youngsters could be inspired to keep on working to achieve their dreams.”
Thanks, Patricia so much for taking the time to chat with us! All the games will be live streamed so you can follow Real’s game v Grodno.