Men’s EuroHockey U21 Championship (Valencia, Spain) – final
The Netherlands won a supreme final contest with Germany 4-1 to secure the men’s EuroHockey U21 Championship title for the 11th time.
Beautiful first half goals from Peppe Veen and Thies Bakker set them on their way before Paul Babic brought them back into the contest.
After that, the Dutch defended perfectly in the second half to stay in front as Germany came on strong while a Pepijn van der Valk upright reverse and a Sander van de Putte walk-in confirmed the win.
The Dutch took the lead within two minutes of the start after an initial surge into the D was repelled but only as far as Joppe Wolbert. He ripped in a hard ball down the middle of the circle where Veen gave it some elevation to beat Jasper Ditzer.
One became two in quite brilliant fashion when Timme van der Heijden spun the ball perfectly into the path of Thies Bakker and, on the slide, he lifted the ball into the net.
Germany were spending much of the time with the ball and pinning the Dutch back but without much clear sights of goal as the oranje looked to keep it tight and break when possible.
That was until Paul Babic latched onto a loose ball after a miscued shot; he flicked into the top corner to cut the gap to 2-1 at half-time.
But they were picked off once more in the third quarter from a Dutch counter which ended with van der Valk striking with an upright backhand shot that picked out the bottom corner.
Try as Germany might, probing the Dutch circle, they found an orange wall in front of them which they could not break down.
Thies Bakker’s clip shot hit the outside of the post from another great chance while Vincent Scholz could not make the most of a huge chance at the far end.
And the victory was assured when Jan van ’t Land and van de Putte combined to walk the ball into an open net with seconds remaining.
