HOCKEY WOMEN’S WORLD CUP : SPAIN AND NETHERLANDS, 2022 – PRE TOURNAMENT QUOTES : POOL A AND POOL B
HOCKEY WOMEN’S WORLD CUP : SPAIN AND NETHERLANDS, 2022 – PRE TOURNAMENT QUOTES : POOL A AND POOL B
The 15th edition of Women’s Hockey World cup features 4 pools
Pre – Tournament Quotes By Teams of Pool A and Pool B
New Zealand
The captains, Megan Hull and Olivia Merry, and the head coach, Darren Smith graced the stage to answer the many questions of the press in Amsterdam.
Darren Smith said, “ We first of all went to Terrassa and had 10 days there and played some matches against Spain so that was a great start and to get into the rhythm of being on tour.”
Olivia acknowledged the brand new pitch : “ We are obviously quite aware that it’s a brand new pitch and I think the pitch here is fantastic.”
On the occasion of being questioned about the fitness of the players, Megan Hull replied : “ We just had a good week session out there today and everyone is looking and feeling pretty good.”
India
Janneke Schopman, Head Coach and Savita, Goalkeeper and Captain, were present for the press conference.
The Captain discussed about the expectation of her country : “Expectations are high, it’s good for us. It is very important to focus on ourselves and fight hard.”
The head coach conveyed, “ It is about knowing what we can do and how we can play with our strengths.”
Chile
The two captains, Camila Caram and Constanza Palma, along with their head coach, Sergio Vigil arrived at the press conference.
Camila Caram :“ We are very proud to be here representing Chile, our country. It’s a historic event for us.”
The head Coach :
“ We prepared very hard. Chile’s team will leave its own mark in this World Cup- a collective spirit, pride and an intelligent game. We will be a hard team to beat.”
Constanza Palma went on to praise the stadium, “The stadium looks really nice, it’s a dream come true to play there and with all of our family and friends it will be nice. It will be a great atmosphere.”
England
The head coach, David Ralph and the team Captain, Hollie Pearne-Webb were the attendants in the press conference from Team England.
The captain about her pool : “Our pool is incredibly tough, I don’t think there are any easy games.”
The coach threw light on the team’s preparation.
“We obviously had the Pro League season which has given us a great opportunity to play a variety of teams in a variety of countries and allow us to start to develop how we want to play and allow players to get used to the international games.”
Germany
The Head coach, Valentin Altenburg and the captains, Sonja Zimmermann and Nikki Lorenz presented themselves at the Press conference.
The coach asserted on the perk of their stay describing it to be useful, “We arrived almost a week ago. Our stay so far is very helpful because we need some time for us as a team to grow together and get used to it in a couple of days. We could test against Australia, play China in the pro league so we are very happy we had the week we had.”
Nikki Lorenz : “We are trying to look at ourselves most of the time. We will focus on ourselves and try to win.”
Sonja Zimmermann took a step to describe about the journey : “It is still kind of an open book because we are still a whole new team and we would rather just look at our goals in steps and so far we just want to perform in all the important matches.”
Netherlands
Jamilon Mülders, Head Coach and the Captains, Pien Sanders, Marloes Keetels, and Xan de Waard represented their team in the conference.
Xan De Waard : “We had a tough year with our process but we think we played a lot of Pro League games and we had a nice training camp in Valencia so I guess we are well prepared.”
Marloes Keetels : “We did some meetings to discuss the opponent but not in detail. We also looked a lot of videos of ourselves on how can we do things and then tomorrow we will fine tune everything against Ireland.”
On being confronted about the game with Chile, Pien Sanders said, “I think it is very nice to play against a debut country (Chile) and we are really looking forward to it and I think they are also excited and we are also, so I think it’s going to be a great match.”
When the reporter asked about the expectation of the coach about playing against Germany, he answered, “It is nice to see them (Germany) again, we saw them before in Hamburg. Surely, it’s a bit awkward at the moment, when you step on the pitch and you listen to the national anthem but in the end it’s just a sport, just a game. It’s really brilliant afterwards, talking to them, chatting with them and I’m sure it will be a good match.”
Ireland
The Captain mentioned about the pitch, “ The pitch is playing very well. There is a nice lively bounce out of it which we are looking forward to. It is set out for a tournament which is great to see.”
Every team will face the other three teams in their pools and the winners will have the opportunity to enter directly in the quarter finals.