The Germans are plotting, quietly for Hockey World Cup
NEW DELHI: You don’t find many captains as modest as Maximilian Muller. The 22-year-old German defender feels his young, inexperienced team stands a good chance of making the semi-finals. Anything more will obviously be a bonus as the defending champions have only three players from the previous World Cup – Mathias Witthaus, Moritz Furste and Jan-Marco Montag.
The revelation came as a shock, but the cleverly worded explanation later on laid bare what Muller actually had in mind: he wouldn’t want the expectations to be so high that it affected their performance. One step at a time please…
Then came the other pointer: Germany won the 2002 and the 2006 World Cups as well as the 2008 Olympic Games with three different teams. Perhaps, it is time now for a hat-trick but without the public gaze on them.
For the record, Germany have been on the rebuilding mode since the Monchengladbach World Cup but won the Olympics in Beijing two years later before hogging the show in 2009. Yes, they have missed the gold twice – once when they lost to England in the EuroHockey Nations and the other when they were hammered by Australia 5-3 in the Champions Trophy final after they were up 3-1. “We lost a lot of finals in 2009. We are not used to that,” Muller said on Friday.
For the World Cup here, Germany have nine players who won the Olympic gold. But they will be without their superstar striker Christopher Zeller, who has left the sport for higher education. “He has to appear for exams. He plans to become a lawyer,” Muller said with a shrug.
But Germany plan to unleash an equally fiery striker in Florian Fuchs,a 21-year-old who was part of their U-21 squad last year. “He will be the one to watch out for,” Muller said.
Muller said Australia were the favourites. “We lost to them in a practice match on Thursday. We had a long journey but you can see that the Aussies are determined. They are the team to beat.”
TRICKY PITCH
Maximilian Muller feels the new pitch can prove to be tricky. “It is new, so obviously the blades are thick. It’s bound to be slippery than normal. It will take some time adjusting to the surface.”