Field hockey is coming home. The Women’s World Cup will take place from July 1-17 in Terrassa and the Dutch town of Amstelveen. The two cities will share the group stage and will share the matches of the “cross over” round, in which the second and third from each group play a round before the quarter-finals, where the highest ranked will wait. The semi-finals and the final will be played at the Olympic Stadium in Terrassa. The Spanish team wants to make it happen, which seeks to improve the bronze obtained in 2018 and the image offered in Tokyo last summer, where it fell in the quarter-finals.

Three decades after the Olympic gold of the ‘Red Sticks’ in Barcelona 92, and after that third place achieved in the last edition of the Women’s World Cup, the Royal Spanish Field Hockey Federation (RFEH) wants this event to be a turning point for Spanish women’s hockey, in the same stadium where Spain achieved the greatest success in this sport in our country, as explained by the president of the RFEH, Santí Deó. “This event only confirms our commitment to women’s sport,” added the president.

At the group presentation and draw ceremony held this Thursday, Spain found themselves paired up in a group whose biggest rival and, predictably, more complicated will be Argentina, second in the world ranking and silver medalist at the last Olympic Games. Korea and Canada should be duels of lesser caliber for the team led by Adrián Lock and captained by Georgina Oliva.

In case of non-obtaining the direct classification, the red sticks, who will still play in Terrassa, would face the second or third teams in Group D, where women’s teams from Australia, Belgium, Japan and South Africa have been grouped together. In Group A are the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Chile, while in Group B are England, New Zealand, India and China. These last two groups will be those who will play the preliminary phase on the Amstelveen site.

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