Hockey World Cup: Strong women’s defensive hockey convince the Netherlands

Amstelveen (DPA) – Zero is! Hockey nets in Germany did not conceded any goal in the World Cup Spain and the Netherlands for the third match in a row.

“It’s a very important step for development to know we can count on defence,” national team coach Valentin Altenberg said after their 1-0 win over New Zealand in Amstelveen in the quarter-finals. Striker Charlotte Stabenhurst added: “Now we can also claim that you can defend with three less players without conceding a goal.”

After all, with ten minutes before the end of the match, he outnumbered Germany twice after green cards against Anne Schroeder and Pauline Heinz, before the opponent also replaced the goalkeeper with a field player of 11. said Stabenhorst, who was also part of the team in the recent bitter defeats in the quarter-finals. At the 2018 World Cup and the 2021 Olympics: “I’ve never seen us defend so blatantly and at the same time play offensively with such freedom.”

“We are all very happy”

Under the leadership of the new coach, who took over from Belgian Xavier Reijinger at the beginning of the year, the players have gained new confidence in themselves. “I haven’t felt comfortable on the hockey field in a long time. With ‘Valli’, I’m back to playing hockey because I enjoy it so much,” revealed the Berlin player. Only Pia Mertens could agree: “We are all very happy that we finally played the knockout match so well. So good that we kept our heads to ourselves.”

Now, he’s moved to Terrassa for the European runner-up, who finished fourth in the world’s top four for the first time in twelve years. Saturday night’s contenders in Spain will be the quarter-final winners Argentina vs. England (Wednesday / 7pm). “We are heading towards Spain full of anticipation. It’s good that we are flying on Wednesday and we can still acclimatize,” the Colony native said.

And Argentina will be Saturday evening in Spain. The Olympic bronze medalist defeated England 1-0 on Wednesday. Recently, the German national team lost the Olympic quarter-finals and two home matches in the FIH Pro League against the Argentines.

After convincing performances in the last preliminary round match against World Cup runners-up Ireland (3-0) and the 1-0 successes in the round of 16 against South Africa and now against New Zealand, Altenburg still has to be more. Finally consistent. And most of all, working on a poor corner kick rate – only one of 27 attempts in the knockout round resulted in a goal.

“It’s not so bad for us as a team when the matches are so close,” Altenberg said. “We are playing on a completely different court now. We haven’t lacked much yet, we will continue to take corners the same way and still have room for improvement.” And this is exactly what must be used to realize the dream of the first World Cup medal since 1998.