Pakistan’s hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals of the Men’s Hockey Junior World Cup again after a 30-year wait crumbled under the weight of a 4-2 Spain victory at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil today.
The Spaniards bore through with a clinical performance to register one of the most exciting win against the inaugural 1979 JWC champions. The Pakistanis were without their first-choice goalkeeper Raza Ali who is nursing a hamstring injury and was replaced by Abdul Rafay.
In Thursday’s semifinals, Spain will play France, while Germany will go into a showdown with India. However, in the 5-8 classification matches Pakistan will play Australia and Argentina takes on the Netherlands.
The Pakistanis last played in the final of the 1993 JWC event, losing 3-1 to Germany.
Since then, they struggled to make inroads and finished 11th position at the 2021 event in Bhubaneswar, India. It was an historic low for the Juniors Green Shirts.
Spain has competed in 11 of the 12 JWC competitions played to date, with bronze at the Rotterdam 2005 event being the pinnacle of their achievements in this tournament.
Pakistan captain Shahid Hannan scored from open play in the 12th minute to put his side 1-0 ahead, but Pol Cabre Verdell (37th), Aleix Bozal (38th), and Pablo Espino (41s) crashed three goals within four minutes of play to go 3-1 up by the third quarter.
Sufyan Khan converted a penalty corner in the 43rd minute as the Pakistanis closed the gap 3-2 but Spain confirmed their victory with a brace from Pol Cabre in the 45th minute.
Oriol Torras Puig, Spain coach, said:
“It was a very good match, but not a good first quarter. The passes were slow, and players were not moving fast enough. But I believe the third quarter was ours. The key point was the pressure we went through, and it was an amazing match. As a team, we need to win the ball all the time to gain control of the match.
We have very good players with good skills and a lot of individual techniques. Pakistan had a very good first half with good drag flickers, and it was a good experience for us playing against a very good side. It is not always that we play against Pakistan or India for that matter.
Roelant Oltmans, Pakistan coach, said:
Spain is one of the best teams in the competition. The way they played in the third quarter was really outstanding, and we could not cope in that period with them. Overall, I think we played quite well.
We were dominating in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, we lost the game. It was that simple. We conceded too many penalty corners, and in the end, they scored from it. “
