The Indoor Hockey World Cup finally gets underway in Porec, Croatia today with Namibia involved in two blockbuster matches this afternoon.
At 13h10 (14h10 Namibian time), Namibia’s men take on Belgium, while at 15h30 (16h30 Namibian time) Namibia’s women take on Australia.
Namibia go into both of the matches as the underdogs, with Belgium ranked third in the world compared to Namibia’s 14th ranking, while Australia’s women are ranked fifth compared to Namibia’s 12th.
Both Namibia’s men and women’s teams, however, have prepared thoroughly, with several warm-up matches as well as an official test series against Croatia, and are now primed to launch their campaigns.
Namibia’s men played a final warm-up match against the world’s top-ranked side, as well as the defending world champions, Austria on Saturday night, and gave an encouraging performance, despite losing the match 5-2.
Austria started on the offensive, taking an early lead through Fulop Losonci while Sebastian Eitenberger made it 2-0 with another field goal after five minutes.
Namibia, however, won a short corner early in the second quarter and although Ernest Jacobs’ shot was saved by Austrian keeper Mateusz Szymczyk, they soon won another, and this time JP Britz fired high into the net.
Namibia kept on attacking and Liam Hermanus finally equalised from the penalty spot just before halftime.
Austria regained the lead when Fabian Unterkirchner scored from a short corner, while Losonci put Austria 4-2 ahead when he scored from a rebound.
Both sides weighed up evenly in the final quarter, but Austria had the final say when Unterkirchner smashed a Losonci cross high into the net just before the final whistle.
Namibia coach Trevor Cormack was encouraged by his team’s performance.
“I think we were a bit nervous at the start but then we pulled it back in the second chukka (quarter) – they took it to us, but we were in the game. I think our demise came in the third chukka, when we let the umpiring get the better of us and they managed to go ahead,” he said.
“We had a couple of chances we should have put away and I think there were some soft turnovers from our side, which gave them the ball instead of us keeping the ball, but we learnt a lot from this game and I think it will give the guys a lot of confidence going into their first World Cup game,” he added.
Cormack said he was confident ahead of today’s opening match against Belgum.
“We are very confident, I think Belgium is not going to be a walk-over by far, but I think we’ve got a few learnings from this, we’ll just analyse the footage of this game and rework a few things and then we’ll go into the Belgium game fresh. I think if we can play like we did for the first two chukkas tonight, play like that for four chukkas, then we will definitely be in with a chance,” he said.
Namibia’s men are competing at their third indoor world cup, after coming 12th in Poznan in 2011, and eighth in Pretoria in 2023.
Namibia and Belgium have only met once before, at the 2023 World Cup, when Belgium won 4-1.
Namibia’s women, meanwhile, are competing at their fourth indoor world cup, following previous appearances at Poznan in 2011 where they came 10th, Berlin in 2018 (ninth) and Pretoria in 2023 (12th). Australia, though, have competed at all six the previous world cups and have never finished outside the top ten.
Australia hold the upper hand in head-on-head encounters with Namibia, with two wins and two draws, according to the official FIH website.
Namibia, however, can draw inspiration from a great performance when the two sides met for the first time at the world cup, in Berlin in 2018. Namibia gave it their all in a battling 3-3 draw, with Kiana Cormack scoring all three their goals.
Then only 16 years old, Cormack had a stunning campaign, finishing as the joint top scorer, and she will once again be a big threat as Namibia search for their first win against the Aussies.
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