The World Cup bronze medalists last year, Czechia will be looking to make their mark in Europe this time around and push for a third women’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship medal this week in Berlin.

They are in a tough group with Belgium, Germany, Spain and Turkiye in a very busy period for their panel with many of the panel playing in the Olympic qualifiers in Ranchi, India just a few weeks ago.

Therefore the preparation was rather fast but they can count on the experienced duo of Jindřiška Neusser and Veronika Nováková who will wear the national jersey again.

They are among a quartet of changes coming in with Kristýna Šafaříková and Eliška Hraníčková also coming in while Adéla Lehovcová and Anička Kolářová will share the captain’s armband.

Barbora Čecháková is key to their chances; she was named the best indoor goalkeeper at last  year’s World Cup as well as the 2020 Euros in Minsk. They will miss, however, Kateřina Laciná.

Their assistant coach is Tomáš Procházka who, in his prime as a player, was leading Mannheimer HC’s defensive lines and was amongst the best in the world in his position. He supports Irish man Gareth Grundie who is head coach.

And player Natálie Hájková says the Indian experience will have its knock-on benefits for many of her side: “It will be something different and new for us again, I think that after India we are better physically, which will help us a lot in the hall.

“We have to place ourselves for a medal, our goal is definitely the upper cross. I hope that we will defend at least the third place that we won in Pretoria at the World Championships.

“Of course, I would have preferred silver or gold, but we’ll see how we do. In indoor tournaments, a single goal can be the difference between relegation and the semi-finals. We mustn’t let anything get us down.”

** 28 of the games will be streamed live from Berlin on www.eurohockeytv.org

** To find out more about the stats, fixtures and teams, click here: https://tms.fih.ch/competitions/1551