The Canadian Men’s Field Hockey Team pulled off an upset to open play at the World League Semifinals Wendesday in Argentina, defeating eleventh ranked Spain 3-2.
The win in its first game is a great boost of confidence for the fifteenth ranked Canadians, who are looking to earn Olympic qualification by finishing third at this tournament.
“We have worked almost nine months for this,” says Devohn Noronha-Teixeira, who scored the eventual game-winner. “We knew all the games were going to be tough and we fought the whole match and we came out on top.”
The game began tentatively with Spain holding more of the possession in the first five minutes but Canada kept a strong defensive shape, not wanting to concede the game’s first goal.
Canada’s first chance of the match came in the sixth minute as a great build-up from Mark Pearson and Gabriel Ho-Garcia led to the game’s first penalty corner.
Gordon Johnston lined up for the drag flick and his attempt squeezed between the Spanish defender and goalkeeper Quico Cortes to give Canada the 1-0 lead.
Despite starting the match on the defensive, the quick goal and turnaround resulted in Canada holding a 70%-30% advantage in possession after the first quarter.
The story of the second quarter was Canadian keeper David Carter, who turned away several Spanish chances to preserve the Canadian lead.
Spain’s best chances came on back-to-back penalty corners when first Carter made a solid stop off a drag flick, and then turned another away with help from Johnston, who got the last touch, hitting the ball off the goal line with a baseball-type swing.
After only one goal in the first half, the third quarter was an offensive explosion.
In the thirty-ninth minute, a Spanish inbound was deftly intercepted by Canadian midfielder Iain Smythe, who quickly fed the ball to Teixeira, who found a wide open James Kirkpatrick to finish the play and give Canada the 2-0 lead.
Four minutes later, however, Spain – now down two goals – scored the important third goal of the match on a Pau Quemada drag flick, to cut Canada’s lead in half.
But just a minute later, Smythe once again found an open Teixeira – this time alone behind the Spanish defenders – who confidently put the ball by an onrushing Cortes to restore Canada’s two-goal lead in the forty-fourth minute.
“Honestly I played a lot of indoor, its just instinct,” says Teixeira about his quick finish. “Nothing was going through my mind, just force of habit. I saw the ball, saw the goalie, and just shot.
Spain got a lucky goal in the fifty-second minute as a shot from Albert Beltran – which was going off target – hit a Canadian defender and deflected in the goal with just over eight minutes remaining.
Despite pulling their goal for an extra attacker, Spain could only manage one more chance in the final minutes, a shot from Sergi Enrique that went wide.
Canada is the first team to earn points in Pool B and will look to go two-for-two when they face Austria on Thursday at 2pm PT/5pm ET. The match can be watched live online via Star Sports.
Click here for Canada’s full World League Semifinals schedule and results.
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS COURTESY OF FIH:
