Belgium wary of German resilience in hockey World Cup final

BHUBANESWAR: Olympic champion Belgium will look to overcome a resilient Germany and become only the fourth nation to defend the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup title when the two sides clash in the final here on Sunday.

Pakistan, Australia and Germany have won back-to-back titles in the past and Belgium, which made it to the world’s elite just around a decade ago, would seek to achieve that feat and defend its title, which it won in 2018, at the same Kalinga Stadium.

With 11 players aged above 30 and three above 35, Belgium’s ‘golden generation’ of hockey players, who have won the 2018 World Cup and Tokyo Olympics golds, have shown that they are supremely fit and experience matters more than age. Belgium has come with the bulk of team which had won the last edition of the event and Tokyo Games.

It is difficult to find out any major weakness in this Belgium team which has some of the world’s finest attacking and defensive players as well as penalty corner specialists. It also has one of the best goalkeepers in the world in the form of Vincent Vanasch.

Belgium has scored 18 goals with star striker Tom Boon contributing seven, and conceded just five in as many matches.

But the world no.2 side would be wary of the “German culture of resilience” which has been in full display in this World Cup as it twice came back from 0-2 down to reach the final.

Two-time champion Germany (2002 and 2006) was trailing by two goals against England in the quarterfinals but struck twice in the last two and half minutes to take the game into penalty shootout, where it emerged winner.

In the semi-finals on Friday, world number four Germany was again trailing Australia, one of the title contenders, by 0-2 at half time but its never-say-die attitude came to the fore as it fought back to level the scores before finding the winner in dramatic fashion with just six seconds left on the clock.

The depth in the Belgium team can also be gauged from the fact that the absence of penalty corner expert and star defender Alexander Hendrickx due to injury early in the tournament was not felt.

The only chink in its armour could be that Belgium has depended mostly on Boon to score the goals.

Florent Van Aubel, Cedric Charlier and Sebastien Dockier have scored just two goals each. Arthur Van Doren and Arthur de Sloover will be the main men at the Belgium defence while captain Denayer and Victor Wegnez will try to control the midfield.

Germany, on the other hand, will be looking to clinch its first title after 2006 and join the club of other three countries to have won the World Cup thrice or more.

Apart from the advantage of having recorded two come-from-behind wins, the Germans have been able to succeed in different playing situations.

Germany adopted man-to-man marking game against England, while it played a zonal system against Australia in the semi-finals.