Malaysia defeats Spanish Hockey Club, Athletic Terrasa, by 6-2 in their European Tour
The Malaysian men’s national hockey team scored another thrashing victory in their second match of the European Tour, played in Barcelona, against Spain’s Athletic Terrasa Hockey Club beating them by 6-2. In their first game they overpowered Real Polo
Club by 4-2, on June 29.
“The new players were given more playing time and we rotated the players in their positions too. In the last 10 minutes most of them were playing and holding their own and some of them should have scored. Mohd Firhan Ashaari, Mohd Azri Hassan, Faiz
Helmy and Fitri Bakar had chances,” Stephen van Huizen, the manager of Malaysia’s national side, said about the chances his athletes had during the later part of the game.
The Malaysian men dominated the entire game from start to the end by scoring equal number of goals in each of the two halves, while the Spanish club also scored a single goal in each half.
The first half started with a great show by the Malaysians as they found an early lead by scoring their opening goal in the sixth minute, when Azreen Rizal made an effortless strike by utilising a fatal mistake in Spanish defence. The Malaysian team
had to wait for another fifteen minutes to double their lead, when Mohd Razie scored the second goal for Malaysia. However, the Spanish club replied in 28th minute and reduced the Malaysian lead, thanks to Javier Ventoyak.
In the ending moments of the first half Mohd Razie made his second strike of the match and the score was 3-0 to Malaysia at the interval.
Stephen van Huizen, the Malaysian national hockey coach looked, quite convincing over hia team’s performance and said that there was an improvement in their game as compare to the first one.
“We again controlled the game and created many chances which we did not put away. Twice they came back to narrow the deficit,” Stephen explained after the match.
“But once we scored the fourth goal, our players grew in confidence and our players began to be more involved and started to run into space, thus opening up the game and stretching their defence,” Stephen van Huizen, the manager of Malaysia’s national
side added his comments.
In the second half the Spanish club found an early opportunity in the 46th minute and again reduced the Malaysian lead, when M Puyal scored the second goal for the Spanish club. However, the Malaysians attacked so strongly that they scored
their next three goals in a short span of 11 minutes. Their fourth goal came in 50th minute by Azammi Adabi, fifth in the 58th minute by Izwan Firdaus and the sixth in the 61st minute.
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