Men's Hockey World Cup 2018: 5 teams with the best defence

#2 Belgium

The Red Lions are solid as ever defensively

With a central defender of the calibre of Loick Luypaert in the team, the Red Lions began their march to ascendancy and have stunned the hockey world by climbing the rungs faster than any other European team.

Ranked tenth a decade ago, Shane McLeod's side are now third in the world rankings and it would be fair to say that a solid defensive unit is at the heart of that success.

Luypaert who won the Golden Stick as a junior, in 2011, was not picked for the Olympic Games at London in 2012 where his team ended up fifth but came back strongly to cement his place in the squad.

Before losing the Olympic final to Argentina a couple of years back, the Belgians had just 7 goals against, in as many matches, with Arthur van Doren, Gauthier Boccard, and Emmanuel Stockbroekx, supporting Luypaert at the back, and making the opposition strikers toil hard.

All four silver medalists who provided the defensive cover at Rio will be in action at Bhubaneswar to pose a stiff challenge to India in the pool stages and, perhaps a few others in the latter stages of the competition.