Spanish Women qualify for semi-final beating Azerbaijan 2-1 in EuroHockey Nations Championship
The Spanish Women have made it through to the semi-final of the EuroHockey Nations Championship (women) as they defeated their Azerbaijani counterparts by 2-1 in their last Pool A match of the GANT EuroHockey Nations Championship (women), played at the Warsteiner
HockeyPark in Monchengladbach, Germany on Tuesday, August 23.
The Spanish remained clinical throughout the match, especially in the second half where they dominated their opponents for most of the time. While the first half was evenly balanced between the sides as there was no goal in the first thirty five minutes
while all the three goals were scored in the second half, two by the Spanish and a single by the Azerbaijanis.
"It was a nice game. The team wanted to remove the spine of the Champions Challenge, in which we lost by 1-2 against them and that despite a defeat would have allowed cross to Spain in the semi-finals with England (if losing to the English had even arranged
a last opportunity to access the games in the match for bronze),” Salvador Indurain, the coach of the Spanish national women’s team, stated his views after the match.
The first half was quite slow as both the teams had to struggle to gain the pace and momentum in the early stages of the first thirty five minutes. Both the teams had created a number of chances in the first half but they remained scoreless until the interval.
However, in the second half there was some entertainment as all three strikes were scored in the later part of the game. The Spanish opened their account just four minutes into the second half when Pilar Sanchez converted a penalty corner into the first
goal of the match in the 39th minute but the Spanish lead stood only for five minutes as the Azerbaijanis equalised in the 44th minute with a beautiful field strike from Mi Seon Aliyeva. The Spanish continued with the same pace towards
the end of the play and brought a number of efforts into action. They had to wait till the ending minutes of the match when they were awarded another penalty corner in the 66th minute to which Anabel Flores made no mistake and score the winning
goal. The match concluded at 2-1 to Spain. The Spanish will be up against Germany in Thursday’s second semi-final.
It will be interesting to see how the Spanish team plays against the aggressive style of the Germans in the second semi-final. The Spanish will be looking to carry their winning momentum into their next match-up and dominate the German team. Coming off this
much needed victory, the Spanish team will be full of confidence and ready to take on the mighty Germans.
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