Croatia wins the gold in Gibraltar!
The Croatia men’s field hockey team has achieved outstanding success by winning the gold medal in the C Group of the European Championship held in Gibraltar and have been promoted a class for the European Championship in 2021, reports HRT on August 4, 2019.
Thus, the tournament in two years will be the second appearance in the B Group in the history of the Croatia national hockey team. The first appearance was back in 2015.
After the semi-final success against the host team and victory after penalties (4:1, 1:1 in regulation time), the Croatia national team defeated the favored Switzerland in the final of the tournament with a score of 5:4. Lucas Bachmann (2), Anže Fujs, Filip Žlimen and Toni Premilovac all scored for Croatia in the final.
The team, led by Norbert Nederloff and Neven Polak, played five games in the tournament, achieving the same number of wins, against Slovakia, Portugal, Malta, Gibraltar, and Switzerland.
“Excellent preparation, the right choice of players and the desire to win brought us this result, the best in history,” coach Polak said after the tournament.
Interestingly, there are four pairs of brothers in the Croatia national team – Mario and Marko Mucić, Andrija and Petar Hršak, Anže and Gregor Fujs, and Lucas and Benjamin Bachmann.
At the same time, the C Group of the women’s European Championship was played in Slovenia. The Croatian senior team failed to achieve a similar result as the men’s team and did not advance to the higher class. Croatia took fourth place in the tournament, losing in the bronze duel to Switzerland after penalties (2:1, 0:0 in regulation time).
The next major competitions are the Division B senior championships in indoor hockey. In January 2020, the women’s seniors will play in Sveti Ivan Zelina, and the men’s seniors in Lucerne.
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