By Sarah Juggins, freelance hockey writer and author of The History Makers
Welcome to London as England’s capital city prepares for the opening day of the most prestigious field hockey event in the world.
It is Women’s World Cup time and London’s home of hockey, the Queen Elizabeth Hockey Centre, has been brushing the turf, painting the lines and hanging out the flags to welcome the best 16 women’s teams in the world.
The World Cup is one of two blue ribbon events in field hockey, the other is the Olympic Games. Like the Olympic Games, the World Cup is contested every four years, mid-way through the Olympic cycle. This year’s edition will be the fourteenth edition of the event and, with 16 teams, it is the largest field of competitors since 2002 – the previous three editions have featured 12 teams. Over the entire history of the competition, the number of competing teams has varied between 10 and 16, but for the majority of events, 12 was the common number. This year’s extended field of competitors means there will be more lower-ranked teams, all looking to cause an upset and defy their International Hockey Federation (FIH) Hero World Rankings.
By far the most successful nation at the World Cup are the current title holders and world number one side, The Netherlands. The Dutch team has won the trophy on no fewer than seven occasions, including in front of a huge 15,000 strong home crowd at The Hague in 2014.
The other three teams to have raised the trophy are: Argentina (2002 and 2010), Australia (1994 and 1998) and Germany (1976 and 1981). The sole medal won by the USA was a bronze medal in 1994.
The competition is bound to be fierce in 2018. A number of teams will feel they have a lot to prove after a less than successful Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Chief among these will be No. 3 Argentina, whose seventh place finish in Rio was well below what this fanatical hockey nation would have expected. Captain of Las Leonas, Delfina Merino, is confident that her young side will peak at exactly the right moment in London. “We have been rebuilding since Rio,” said Menno in a recent interview. “And the young players, who have experienced success at the Junior World Cup, are now reaching maturity in the senior side.”
Another team that will be looking to re-establish themselves as hockey champions are the double World Cup winners Australia. In recent years the Hockeyroos have slipped down the world rankings – they are currently fifth in the world – and they know they have underperformed at both Hockey World League level and at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where they finished sixth. Australia won silver at the 2014 World Cup but the team has changed dramatically since then and the intervening years have seen a rebuilding process. 2018 is a big year for the new look Hockeyroos. First they contest the Commonwealth Games at home, where they are defending champions and then they will switch their focus to the World Cup.
One person who knows what it takes to win in the green and gold of Australia is The Netherlands’ coach Alyson Annan. The former FIH Player of the Year was part of the World Cup winning squads in 1994 and 1998. Now she will be hoping to add to her medal haul with a gold as coach of The Netherlands. Her squad will arrive in London as favorites for the title. Since they won silver in Rio, The Netherlands have been on a winning streak. They won the FIH Hockey World League Final in Auckland, New Zealand, and have now gone 23 games without a loss. The team has a lot of new faces but stability is added by the presence of Carlien Dirkse van den Heuvel, Margot van Geffen and Lidewij Welten. Talking about their chances of winning gold again, van Geffen said, “If we didn’t think we could win, we might as well stop playing now.”
The last team to beat The Netherlands was Great Britain, who defeated them for gold medal in Rio. Playing in the World Cup as England, many of the Olympic gold medalists are still competing and will be hungry for success in front of the home crowd. England had a torrid time at the 2014 World Cup, as they began the competition as one of the teams expected to win a medal and ended up in 11th. There will be psychological issues related to that experience for some of this team to overcome but with Head Coach Danny Kerry and his coaching staff, they have one of the most experienced backroom staff in the game.
Four teams will be in London representing Asia, with NO. 8 China, No. 9 Korea, No. 10 India and No. 12 Japan all qualifying through Hockey World League events. India also sealed their qualification by winning the Asia Cup. Whether any of these teams has what it takes to win gold is debatable. But in China and Korea there is an obdurate defensive spirit that means they are desperately hard teams to break down. China in particular has made a strong defense and a quick counter-attack their specialty. On their day, China could hold a stronger opposition and then get a quick break to snatch unexpected victory. Korea have recently upped their game and their reward for a more attacking style of play was a bronze medal at the FIH Hockey World League Final, where they beat England.
No. 11 Spain, No. 13 Belgium, No. 14 South Africa, No. 16 Ireland and No. 17 Italy are all teams whose medal prospects are remote but who are capable of giving the higher ranked teams a shock. All five have played and defeated teams above them in the world rankings in order to qualify, showing the immense spirit among these teams. But, as Spain’s Head Coach coach Adrian Lock said when talking about his team’s prospects, for any of these teams to progress to the medal matches, they will need to show greater levels of consistency throughout the course of the tournament. Flashes of brilliance and one-off games will work in quarterfinal, knockout matches but for a tournament such as the World Cup, sustained high levels of performance are needed for the duration.
Two teams who will have high hopes of winning a medal are No. 4 New Zealand and No. 6 Germany. The Black Sticks have come tantalizingly close to medals in the past few years, losing in semifinal matches at both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games. They came in fifth at the 2014 World Cup but are a far more experienced team now. They won silver at the 2017 FIH Hockey World League Final in Auckland and came within a whisker of inflicting defeat on The Netherlands at the Hockey World League Semifinal in Brussels in June 2017. The Black Sticks will definitely think that 2018 could be their year for a major medal.
Germany was recently crowned Indoor Hockey World Champions and captain Janne Muller-Wieland is already eyeing a potential World Cup ‘double’. Many of the squad who won Indoor Hockey gold in Berlin will also be on the roster for the outdoor World Cup and confidence levels in the camp are high. It has been a long time since the German women won a major medal in the outdoor game but recent performances have seen them on the podium as bronze medalists in Rio and silver medalists at the Hockey World League Semifinals in Johannesburg. “We keep going until the final whistle,” said Muller-Wieland, “We learn and grow with each game during a tournament and often that means peaking at the right time.”
The final team in our World Cup analysis is the USA. The team shook the world of hockey at the 2014 World Cup as they came in as definite underdogs and left with a fourth place finish. Their opening game destroyed the hopes of England and from then on Team USA just kept producing results. In the pool games, they drew with continental rivals Argentina before thrashing higher-ranked Germany, China and South Africa. The USA dream finally came to an end in the semifinals when they lost in a shootout to Australia.
The 2014 World Cup signaled the start of an upward trajectory for USA. Now, at every major event, the team in red, white and blue are feared for their unrelenting work rate and refusal to ever hold up their hands in defeat. This culminated with a gold medal at the 2017 FIH Hockey World League Semifinal in Johannesburg.
Can USA go one better than 2014 and win a medal? With the leadership and inspiration provided by FIH Player of the Year nominee Melissa Gonzalez, this is a team with direction and drive. Head Coach Janneke Schopman is a World Cup winner with the Netherlands and she is name-checked by a number of top players, including Delfina Merino and Margot van Geffen, as a hugely talented coach. If things go their way and they get early momentum, no-one will be writing off USA’s chances of winning a medal.
The competition gets underway on July 21, with the opening day seeing eight teams in action. First, Germany take on South Africa, then it is the home nation England against India; this match is followed by a humdinger between the USA and Ireland before Australia faces Japan.
For the full playing schedule visit usafieldhockey.com and click on Events and Upcoming Events. Follow along and cheer on USA by using #Gr1tForGlory.
This article is featured in the Spring 2018 issue of FHLife Magazine. To read more inspiring, knowledge-packed and fun features revolving around hockey, fitness, healthy eating and how to strengthen your game, subscribe to our quarterly publication by clicking here.