Pool D: Germany, India, Malaysia, Wales
Germany finished third in the EuroHockey Junior Championship but many of the team have since had experience at the Tokyo Olympic Games and will bring a lot of high quality playing experience with them. In the past few weeks, the German side was able to gain invaluable experience playing as a team in the FIH Hockey Pro League. The team’s performances, where they twice drew with the senior national India team, will have given Head Coach Akim Bouchouchi a lot of valuable information about his players’ capabilities.
Speaking on the FIH Hockey Pro League show, fellow coach Adrian Lock, who leads the Spain women’s national team, said that the experience of going to India to play two senior international matches would have been ‘fantastic preparation’ for the team, both in terms of on-pitch preparations and also adapting to life as an international athlete.
Preparations have been intense in India as well. “For the last 5-6 months, we’ve been continuously doing practice on the field. We made some strategies. We are working on our press, on our defense. We are also practicing Penalty Corner attack-defense”, says Indian player Akshata Abaso Dhekale. “We are doing very hard work for the World Cup. As a team, we are so excited! At the field everyone is doing their job as well as they could and our coaches are also taking a lot of efforts on us.”
Malaysia and Wales are both making appearances due to the withdrawal of other teams but both sides will be keen to make the most of the opportunity offered. For Malaysia this is a debut performance, while Wales are making a second appearance – they last appeared in 2001, where they finished 11th of 15. While the rankings and stats would point to a German or Indian side topping the pool, this is a World Cup, where anything can happen.
Malaysia Hockey Federation president Datuk Seri Subahan Kamal said the opportunity offered to Malaysia, after the withdrawal of Japan, was timed perfectly to align with the national five year development plan. For that reason, despite the short preparation time, Malaysia Hockey ‘snapped up the seat’.
For Wales, the chance to play in a World Cup had not been part of the vision at all, says Izzie Howell. It is an opportunity that the midfielder says the team will make the most of. Howell is an experienced member of the squad, having represented Wales at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and she knows what it means for a small nation like Wales to be on the world stage in this way.
‘I’m so excited for what it means for younger players coming through as well. I was lucky enough to be part of the team two years ago in Turkey, at the Europeans, when we got promoted into A Division which has enabled us to get this invite. It’s so exciting to be a part of that legacy and also to leave what we’re going to do for other players coming through. Because, once we put our mark on the world stage then people will look at us like “these young players from Wales, they mean business, they’re serious!”.
Pool D springs into action on 2 April when India face Wales and Germany take on Malaysia.
The complete match schedule can be viewed here.
