Planet Field Hockey

18th Alps Cup
20th ? 23rd Sept. 2001
ZAGREB, Croatia

Final standings:

1. Italy
2. France
3. Czech R.
4. Croatia
5. Switzerland
6. Austria

Player of the tournament: Frederic Verrier (FRA)
Goalkeeper of the tournament: Patrik Busek (CZE)
Scorer of the tournament: Tomas Prochazka (CZE)

Italian triumph, after four years, may came as a surprise, but it was well deserved. Italy had two rather easy pool matches (Switzerland and Croatia) and they were not too convincing, still they had to prove their strength against France in the final, and they did, especially in the second half. After all they finished the competition with only one conceded goal, which isn?t a minor detail. Second placed France on the other hand came with their U21 team, preparing for the World Cup in Hobart. They had an excellent match against Czechs (3:2) on Saturday, which pulled them up on the first place in pool B. In the final French were a little bit too defensive. And when they were one goal down, they failed to make a serious threat to Italian goal.

Czech Republic was the most attractive team of the tournament. They played the most beautiful hockey with many exciting dribbles and passes, and with a fantastic PC flicker Prochazka (the best scorer of the tournament) they had an average of 4,6 goals/match. The first half against France was their only bad half, unfortunately it was enough to take them off the final. This year Czechs probably deserved more, than just a third place. In the match for the third place they played against the home team Croatia. Croatia finished fourth and that?s their best rank ever in the Alps Cup. Home pitch obviously helped especially in the match against Switzerland (2:2), which enabled Croats to play in the third place match. Of course we must not forget a great job done by Croatian international Elvis Kirin (Rot-Weiss Munich).

Switzerland at the end was delighted to finish 5th, although they still regret draw with Croatia on Saturday. They also came to learn with their U21 team. Their play was very tactical, thanks to their Dutch coach Rob Wuijster. However the players still need more experience. At the bottom ? Austria. They started excellent against France in the first day (2:2), but later their concentration went down. The best proof for that was match against Swiss when they missed and missed many good chances. Finally they were bad at penalty strokes as well, and buried themselves on the last place.

Apart from hockey on the pitch, hockey was discussed on two important meetings. First was the visit from mr. David Balbirnie (EHF Hon. Gen. Secretary) to president of Croatian Olympic Committee mr. Zdravko Hebel. Hopefully the meeting will result with a better help from COC to Croatian hockey. The other meeting was the EHF development seminar for Central and Eastern European countries, conducted by Rita Keverling Buisman and Gianni Rossi from EHF. The meeting was very successful and it set goals to be reached in the future.

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