S2H Team
France defeated Spain in the Euro Championship but that was not adequate to ensure them the Bhubaneswar World Cup ticket. Spain makes it on goal difference.
The French, coached by Dutch legend Jeroen Delmee, won the crucial encounter after trailing by two goals.
Everything that French hockey thinks and does is about the Olympics they host in 2024 in Paris.
Qualification for the 2018 World Cup in Bhubaneswar was timely and it was there that ‘Les Blues’ served notice of their intentions with spirited performances.
They drew with Spain 1-1 and then beat Olympic champions Argentina 5-3 to qualify for the quarterfinals where they lost to powerhouses Australia to finish eighth – a creditable finish, though not their best of seventh achieved twice before at the World Cup.
It was also an amazing come-together of factors that have kept the pot boiling nicely for Paris 2024 where French hockey wants to make a huge statement to their sporting public obsessed with football.
In the 2013 New Delhi Junior World Cup, France shocked the world by entering the final where they lost to Germany. Many of those players have formed the nucleus of the current squad.
Pieter van Staaten and Gaspard Baumgarten are two of a clutch of players that have been part of a remarkable French journey through the ranks, notably qualifying for the 2018 World Cup through the FIH World Series tournament in Johannesburg. It meant featuring in the World Cup after 28 years and represented a significant achievement by a group of talented players.
At Amstelveen, earlier in the week, France all but beat Germany when they led 5-2 after 22 minutes only to go down 5-6 with the match-winner coming four seconds from the end.
They missed the semi-finals but scored a rousing 6-5 (a reversed scoreline) over Russia in Group C, the plate group at the event to produce the fifth team that would travel to Bhubaneswar-Rourkela two years from now.
Then came the epic fightback against Spain to ensure that France remain the frame at the top level to keep the fire burning for the Olympics in their backyard.
The achievement in Amstelveen sustains a concerted effort both on and off the pitch to enable French hockey take a giant leap by the time the Olympics come around three years from now.
Encapsulated in Ambition 2024, shared by all stakeholders of French hockey, the aim is to get more people playing, organize high level national and international competitions, make the general public aware of the values and numerous assets of hockey, through wide-reaching media coverage, develop the necessary funding and working towards a major objective: the performance and success of the French national teams.
A high performing French team, Ambition 2024 reckons, will result in bigger interest from partners and the media, and as a spin-off, more encouragement to play the game.
In precise terms, French hockey achieved a top 10 finish at the 2018 World Cup, and although they did not qualify for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, they are aiming for fifth place at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
More profoundly France wants to sustain growth in the numbers of those involved in the sport in the country. A rise in the number of players from 50,000 in 2018 to 60,000 currently, almost half female, is projected to grow to 75,000 in 2022 before a hopeful 100,000 by the time the 2024 Olympics arrive.