Surprises galore in Men & Women world league semifinals

The New Zeland hockey team sprung a major upset last year when they defeated Netherlands

Sometimes one wonders how much a ‘world ranking’ really matter in sport, especially just field hockey. Over the years, we have seen teams making a mockery of rankings and a close look at both the Men and Women FIH Hockey World League Semifinals would be fair pointer to the fact that the gap between teams are indeed narrowing and on any given day anything can happen on the pitch.

Who would have thought that Canada – ranked 15th in the world – would go on to upset the applecart of 11th ranked Spain 3-2 in their tournament opener? Mind you Spain are a formidable side and their current number 11 ranking is hardly a justification of their prowess and is only because of the lean trot they are going through in recent times. Canada probably lifted the profile of field hockey in the country when they showed the knockout phase exit door to 7th ranked New Zealand, who have been in good form having won the 2015 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Ipoh.

Canada’s fourth place finish is ample proof that the so-called lesser nations are fast catching up with the big names of world hockey. 6th ranked Argentina – a steadily improving side over the years – sent Olympic champions Germany packing with a 4-3 win in the league phase. 7th ranked New Zealand, who were shocked by Canada in the quarterfinals, caused a stunner holding 2nd ranked Netherlands to a 1-1 draw pulling off the equaliser in the final minute of play.

As it panned out, New Zealand bore the brunt of shocking defeats going down to 1-3 to 11th ranked Spain in the 5-6 place classification game. If these were the so-called upsets, then there were some ‘mild upsets’ in the men’s world league semifinals in Buenos Aires – where 8th ranked Korea held 7th ranked New Zealand to a 3-3 draw and 3rd ranked Germany surprising 2nd ranked Netherlands 2-1 in the semifinals.

The galore of upsets was not just confined to the men’s world league in Buenos Aires- the first women’s world league semifinals in Valencia also threw up surprises. 15th ranked and hosts Spain shocked 7th ranked China 1-0, but perhaps the biggest upset was 8th ranked Great Britain’s 2-0 win over 3rd ranked Argentina. 14th ranked Ireland also surprised 11th ranked South Africa 4-1.

Clearly, the above results are a gentle reminder that modern hockey is fast spreading across the globe and any team in the top-20 or thereabouts can spring a surprise on any given day. Making mockery of rankings is something that is here to stay and the positive augury of this is that all top teams need to keep raising their performance bar if they are to avoid ‘shockers’ in major events!