The Spanish women’s field hockey team won with authority and good feelings (4-1) Canada this Friday at the start of the World Cup that takes place in the Olympic Stadium Terrace.
The hosts, also the Netherlands in Amstelveen, opened the World Cup with a win that they amassed in the second quarter. The nerves of the debut in a big event, with a renewed and young team and at home, were released after five minutes with Belén Iglesias 1-0, and even more so with the rush that left the 4-0 break.
suffocated
The North Americans were suffocated by a very vertical Spain that, although the piston dropped in the second half, added the first three points in Group C, from where they will seek to go directly to the quarterfinals, surely in the duel with Argentina, already in the second day in fact on Sunday at 21:30.
Those of Adrian Lock, renewed after a 2021 of bad memories in the European and the Tokyo 2020 Games, signed round half an hour, they began pressing, with a lot of possession and dominating the ball. After five minutes, four consecutive ‘penalty-corner’ ended in 1-0. Begoña García pardoned the second shortly after but Canada did not leave their field, trying to counter without success.
The Spanish insistence had more reward in the second quarter, with the 2-0 in an unstoppable ‘penalty-corner’ by Xantal Giné. Haughn later forced the sanction in the area of the host, but in the last five minutes María López and Begoña García, in another ‘penalty-corner’, left the 4-0 that already tasted like victory.
Canada, more gripped in its return to a World Cup 28 years later, let go in the restart and came to test Melanie García, in a 0-0 in the third act that Adrian Lock did not like. The ‘Red Sticks’ coach did not want half measures and Gigi Oliva and Lucía Jiménez regained control. Spain finished better but Johansen Karli avoided a clean sheet in Jana Martínez’s debut.
SPAIN: Melanie García (P), Candela Mejías, María López, Xantal Giné, Laura Barrios, Beatriz Pérez, Gerogina Oliva, Lucía Jiménez, Sara Barrios, Torres-Quevedo, Belén Iglesias, Marta Segu, Amundson, Maialen García, Clara Ycart, Begoña García, Laia Vidosa and Jana Martínez (P).
CANADÁ: Rowan Harris (P), Leahy, McManus, Goodman, Johansen, Jordyn Faiczak, Woodcroft, Sourisseau, Secco, Stairs, Haughn, Mollenhauer, Thompson, Delmotte, De Armond, Sawers, Johnston, Laplante (P).
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GOALS: 1 – 0, min.4, Belén Iglesias; 2 – 0, min.20, Xantal Giné; 3 – 0, min.25, María López; 4 – 0, min.28, Begoña García; 4 – 1, min.56, Johansen Karli.
FIELD: Terrassa Olympic Stadium.