Austria lead the way in the men’s EuroHockey Indoor Championships thanks to high-scoring wins over Switzerland and Belgium on the first day of action Hamburg.
Germany won a dramatic late battle with the Netherlands to sit in second overnight with the Dutch third while Switzerland, Czech Republic and Belgium are on one points
The Netherlands got the men’s side of the competition under way with a breathtaking 8-2 win over the Czech Republic with some beautifully accurate indoor hockey.
The first goal was a masterpiece, a series of probing passes around the edge of the Czech circle which eventually was worked to the baseline and crossed for Gijs Campbell to deflect in.
Lukas Plochy nailed a corner goal in reply but a pair of Max Sweering penalty strokes in Q2 either side of a Wiegert Schut goal soon had the Dutch in the clear at 4-1.
Crucially, Jochem Bakker added two more within seconds of each other - one an audacious baseline flick - to make it 6-1 and the game was up. Martin Seemann did score for the Czechs but the Dutch piled on two more via Schut and captain Boris Burkhardt before missing out from their third stroke of the match.
World number one side Austria started off their competition in confident style with a 9-5 win over Switzerland despite some early and late drama against Switzerland.
Goal machine Michael Körper was instrumental with five goals while Oliver Binder’s slick skills brought him a trio of strikes, too.
Switzerland did burst into an early 2-1 lead with Boris Stomps and Yves Morard finding the net but Austria managed the next seven goals to put themselves out of sight.
They went in front for the first time in the 13th minute via a Körper stroke and he added an effort from a corner and one from play before the end of Q2 - a 5-2 half-time lead.
It grew to 8-2 before Austria were reduced to four players with two yellow cards in the closing two minutes. During that time, Switzerland scored three times while Körper also got his fifth goal.
Belgium and Germany played out a rip-roaring encounter which saw the hosts eventually storm back to draw 4-4 having trailed by three going into the last seven minutes.
After an early German goal was disallowed, the Belgians took advantage of the reprieve and hit the front themselves via Gaetan Dykmans. Niklas Bruns levelled but his side were rocked by a hat-trick of Philippe Simar goals in the second quarter that propelled his side into a big lead.
After that, Germany peppered the Belgian circle but were unable to unlock the door until Philip Schmid flicked in a corner in the 33rd minute.
It got the big crowd pumped up and they were soon sensing a big fightback. Paul Doesch scrambled in a loose ball for 4-3 and then, with the final minute closing in, Henrick Mertgens snagged the equaliser.
In the evening session, Switzerland recovered from a three-goal deficit to draw 5-5 with the Czech Republic as both sides landed their first point of the day.
The Swiss side went in front courtesy of Yves Morard’s corner in the second quarter; Tomas Procházka levelled and Lukas Plochy put the Czechs ahead when he swooped on a loose ball and steadied before flicking in for 2-1 at half-time.
Plochy added a corner goal and then Procházka scored a stroke for what looked a strong 4-1 lead. The comrback started when Lorenz Gassner picked up the pieces in mid-circle with nine minutes to go.
Gaël Wyss-Chodat heightened the tension with another scrambled goal but Plochy replied with his third of the evening, making it 5-3 with three minutes to go, rebounding off the post into an empty net.
But a Michel Morard corner and a Martin Greder goal in the final minute saw Switzerland snatch a draw for their efforts.
Austria made it two wins from two with another strong performance, outdoing Belgium 6-2. A first quarter stroke for a foul on Fabian Unterkircher was dispatched by Michael Körper.
Körper doubled up with a backhand flick in the second quarter for 2-0, a lead which was cut to 2-1 at the break when Arnaud Dykmans’ shot made it through Mateusz Szymczyk.
Unterkircher’s tidy deflection was annulled by a Philippe Simar corner, moving it on to 3-2, before the world number one side pulled away. Sebastian Eitenberger’s shot snuck over the line and a clever dummy-flick from Unterkircher led to the fifth.
Unterkircher tacked on a sixth - his third - to close out a win to top the table after day one on six points.
Germany got their first win of the competition when they defeated the Netherlands, moving the hosts up to second in the table after the first day of action after an epic endgame.
Jochem Bakker put the Dutch on the scoreboard first in the fourth minute but it was level at 1-1 at the first interval courtesy of Niklas Bruns. Henrik Mertgens had them in front in the 12th minute and they looked to be in control when Paul Doesch scored a corner.
Lucas Middendorp’s gorgeous spin-move got the Dutch back within range briefly in the 26th minute but teenager Michel Strutthoff was on hand to restore the two-goal wedge at 4-2.
And they were seemingly out of reach in the 34th minute when Doesch calmly scored a penalty stroke, making it 5-2.
Jeroen Hertzberger pulled one back from the top of the D in the 37th minute and then Gijs Campbell followed up a ball across to cut the gap to 5-4. Boris Burkhardt levelled in the last minute but it was not enough to gain a point as Germany won a corner with two seconds showing.
Doesch was once again the man to step forward and drag in for a famous 6-5 success.
Friday sees three more games in the men’s competition with Germany facing Switzerland (13.15 CET), the Netherlands meeting Belgium (14.30 CET) and the Czech Republic playing Austria (15.45 CET).
** You can watch every game of the 2022 EuroHockey Indoor Championships via www.eurohockeytv.org; a €3.99 tournament pass is available for all countries EXCEPT Germany for games involving Germany. those games will be geo-blocked due to live broadcasts on local channels.
Further details here: https://eurohockey.org/2022/11/30/eurohockeytv-to-broadcast-eurohockey-indoor-championships/
