FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifier has started in Ranchi. The first match was played between Germany and Chile. Germany started their campaign with a win by defeating Chile 3-0.
Sports Minister of Jharkhand Government, Hafizul Hasan was present at the stadium as the chief guest. He introduced himself to the players before the match and gave the trophy to the players after the match.
Germany is considered a strong contender for the title. Proving this right, the team performed strongly and kept pressure on Chile from the beginning. The team took a lead of two goals in the first quarter.
World number five team Germany registered an easy victory over world number 14 team Chile in the opening match of Pool B with the help of goals from Celine Oruz (7th minute), Jette Fleschutz (10th) and Lisa Nolte (38th).
Germany started aggressively as expected and maintained its dominance for most of the match. The Chilean team was able to perform well only in bits and pieces. Chile attempted to score several times but were stopped by German defenders.
Germany got a penalty corner in the second minute itself but could not take advantage of it. However, Oruj soon converted the second penalty corner. Three minutes later, Fleischutz scored a field goal.
After this, Chile also got two penalty corners, but they could not take advantage of them. Nolte ensured Germany’s victory by scoring a field goal in the 38th minute. Whereas, the Chilean team could not succeed in scoring a single goal. Germany’s next match will be against Japan tomorrow.
After the match, the German captain said that we have won this match, but we made many mistakes. We will correct our mistakes and enter the next match in a more powerful manner. We had chances to score more goals, which we missed.
Chile’s Ananin Domasia said that we played this match much better than our previous matches. We had many chances to score goals but we could not succeed in them. But we also prevented many goals from being scored. Now our focus is on tomorrow’s match.