Dublin, Ireland- EuroHockey Championship Qualifier B (Men)
Hot on the heels of their Olympic experience in Paris, Ireland’s will host the men’s EuroHockey Championship Qualifier B from which top spot will earn a spot at next year’s showcase event in Mönchengladbach.
Second to fifth place, meanwhile, will get a spot at Championship II in 2025 with sixth to eighth going to Championship III, meaning there is a huge amount at stake.
Thursday’s quarter-finals see Wales face Luxembourg who contest their first ever international fixture. Czechia take on Türkiye, Italy meet Poland before Ireland face Malta.
** Each game will be streamed live on www.eurohockeytv.org on a pay-per-view basis for €9.99 for a weekend pass
Match Schedule
| Match # | Date/Time | Details | Scoreline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 22 Aug 2024 11:00 | WAL v LUX (M1) | – |
| 2 | 22 Aug 2024 13:15 | CZE v TUR (M2) | – |
| 3 | 22 Aug 2024 15:30 | ITA v POL (M3) | – |
| 4 | 22 Aug 2024 17:45 | IRL v MLT (M4) | – |
| 5 | 23 Aug 2024 15:30 | Loser Match 1 v Loser Match 2 (5th/8th place (M5)) | – |
| 6 | 23 Aug 2024 17:45 | Loser Match 4 v Loser Match 3 (5th/8th place (M6)) | – |
| 7 | 24 Aug 2024 12:00 | Winner Match 1 v Winner Match 2 (Semi-final 1) | – |
| 8 | 24 Aug 2024 14:15 | Winner Match 4 v Winner Match 3 (Semi-final 2) | – |
| 9 | 25 Aug 2024 09:15 | Loser Match 5 v Loser Match 6 (7th/8th place) | – |
| 10 | 25 Aug 2024 11:30 | Winner Match 5 v Winner Match 6 (5th/6th place) | – |
| 11 | 25 Aug 2024 13:45 | Loser semi-final 2 v Loser semi-final 1 (3rd/4th place) | – |
| 12 | 25 Aug 2024 16:00 | Winner semi-final 2 v Winner semi-final 1 (Final) | – |
Ireland (World number 9)
Mark Tumilty has made seven changes to the squad that travelled to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Mark Ingram and James Milliken are the two options in goal, replacing David Harte and Jaime Carr. Luke Madeley returns following the injury that made him unavailable for Paris selection.
Jonny Lynch and Ali Empey make the step up from the reserve list to the full squad for the competition and are also joined by twins Louis and Charlie Rowe, and Banbridge club mate Luke Witherow. Shane O’Donoghue has been bestowed the captain’s honours for the tournament in the absence of Sean Murray who has an injury.
Speaking at the announcement of the squad Head Coach Mark Tumilty said: “There are a number of changes because of unavailability, but the new players will bring a freshness into the group. I am happy with this squad.
“I always thought there would be changes from the Olympic squad. Mark Ingram has missed a lot of international hockey over the years due to work commitments, but he has an opportunity to shine at this tournament.
“James Milliken has earned his chance to be involved as back up to Mark. Luke Madeley has been very unfortunate with injury to miss out on the Olympics, but hopefully he can get in a full season with Three Rock Rovers in 2024/25, and he will be another option at penalty corners.
“Luke Witherow has trained extremely well over the past three months and was unlucky not to make the Paris games. We let Charlie and Louis Rowe concentrate on the Under 21 EuroHockey Championships in the latter part of the summer and are delighted to have them involved this week.”
On the year to date and looking forward to the tournament, Tumilty said: “We’ve played a lot of games this year as the underdog, and the focus in those matches had to be on what we did without the ball. Our challenge this week is what we can do with the ball, and it begins with the game against Malta on Thursday night. Hopefully we will have enough to get through that and advance to the semi-final on Saturday.
“No matter, who we end up against, were we to reach a semi-final, Italy or Poland will each present a challenge. We haven’t had it easy against Italy who will offer a significant challenge. They were unfortunate to be eliminated from the European B Championships in a shoot-out by Ukraine last summer in Dublin. And if anybody other than Wales qualify for the final it will be either Czechia or Türkiye. We played against Türkiye in Calais a few years ago and against Czechia in Dublin last year.
On the target for this week, Tumilty stated: “We have to win this tournament in order to return to the European A Division Championship in 2025. We were relegated from that Division in 2019. The way the format is structured for the tournament is such, that if we qualify for 2025, we will also qualify to be in the A Championships that’s being expanded in 2027.”
Wales (World number 17)
Wales come into the competition in strong form and preparations have gone well with series wins over Scotland and Austria.
An aim this summer was to develop more depth in the squad, especially as they will not have the services of Olympians Rupert Shipperley, Gareth Furlong and Jacob Draper who were both involved in Great Britain’s run to the quarter-finals in Paris.
Toby Reynolds-Cotterill is in the mix having been part of the wider Great Britain Olympic panel for much of 2024, playing in a number of Pro League games. Nic Morgan, Will Penrose, Jamie Rawlings and Owen Sutton are in line for their first senior international tournament while there are 11 of this panel who played in the European top division in 2023 in Mönchengladbach where they drew with Germany.
Head Coach Danny Newcombe said he is “impressed with the engagement of the squad and their performances. I am very much so looking forward to seeing how this group grows moving forward.”
Captain Ben Francis feels “the group has come on a lot over these past few months and are motivated to do well”.
“We have an exciting young squad, who have put together two very good series wins against Austria and Scotland so far this summer. We have a tricky route to a potential final with Ireland, but the possibility of another A division in 2025 is a huge motivation to put in some big performances next week.”
Italy (World number 27)
Italy arrive in Dublin with a side in something of a transition under their new coaching team, Czech duo Petar Bodnar and Richard Kotrc (who has been based in Italy for many years).
Eleven of the side who finished fourth in EuroHockey Championship II return with seven changes. Mattia Amorosini – with 61 caps – is the only player with over 30 caps to his name.
On the goalkeeping front, Andrea Dell’Anno is marginally the more experienced goalkeeper with 1 cap, Alessandro Comello yet to play a senior international.
Swiss-based Simone Pagliara will play his first outdoor matches since 2016 having played 16 indoor caps since then. There are also a number of rising stars with fiery Tevere forward Felix Dionisi Vici one to watch in the forward line, Simone Zoppo and Dario Saoncella are also recent graduates of the nation’s Under-21 sides.
The squad is diversely based with players based in five different countries. Amorosini has Hoofdklasse hockey to look forward to this term with SCHC where he will be a club mate of Irish player Ali Empey who he could meet later in this tournament.
Italy ended their preparation in Zagreb with Croatia with three wins. In the last test, they won 5-2 with goals from Manuel Mondo, Facundo Harte and Dionisi Vici.
Poland (World number 28)
Poland are looking to build on an outstanding 12 month period in which they won EuroHockey 5s gold in Walcz, indoor silver in Leuven in February and the EuroHockey Championship III last summer (conceding just one goal in the process).
Coach Dariusz Rachwalski was the long-time coach at SV Arminen in Austria and his older brother Krysztof was installed as the women’s coach ahead of their Euro qualifier this week.
And they have a large portion of the side that won most of those medals involved this week. Eight of the Euro indoor side is in the panel including their top scorer from that event Gracjan Jarzyński (nine goals) and Jacek Kurowski who captains the team in both formats.
Goal machine Eryk Bembenek will look to reprise some of last summer’s shooting from the third tier when he netted 12 goals in six games. He also scored 15 times in the 5s Euros, putting him just ahead of Damian Jarzembowski who had 12 at 5s level and is Poland’s top goalscorer in 2024 with four goals.
The one dull note on their record this year was their ninth place finish at the FIH Nations Cup in June where they fell to narrow defeats to New Zealand (4-2), Korea (1-0), South Africa (2-1) and Austria (2-1).
Eleven of the panel play in their domestic league while the rest are scattered across Europe. Robert Pawlak has earned a transfer to Indiana in Belgium; Kurowski is with strong German club TSV Mannheim while Eryk Bembenek is at DTV Hannover with Jarzyński.
Maksymilian Koperski is with Harvestehuder THC; Tomasz Bembenek with Pingouin in Belgium and Jakub Chumenczuk is with Kipper in Hamburg.
Mateusz Nowakowski used to play in Ireland for Railway Union having spent time in secondary school in Dublin at Mount Temple.
Czechia (World number 30)
The Czechia side is a really young one with seven players lining out this summer in the EuroHockey Junior Championship II in Lausanne.
The side has three pairs of brothers: Vit and Ondrej Soukup, František and Josef Toms; and Štěpán and Jakub Klaban. Among them, Slavia Prague’s František Toms is the youngest panelist at just 15; he made his senior debut along with 17-year-old Štěpán Šmíd this month in a test match against Poland which the Czechs lost 1-0.
In addition to that Poland game, they also played friendlies against Scotland and Ukraine, winning a couple of fixtures against the latter in the final lead-in to Dublin.
The Czechs finished their last visit to Blanchardstown with a fifth place finish, finishing on a high with a 7-1 win over Türkiye with key marksman Lukas Plochy ending with four goals in that game and eight overall – he was the second highest scorer in the tournament.
He is by some distance their most capped player with 72 games; he has over 50 international goals between indoor and outdoor fixtures.
Thirteen of this panel are here once more from the 2023 vintage with twin towers Adam Uhliř and Andrej Hes likely to be the central defenders and Petr Větrovsky in goals.
Türkiye (World number 43)
Türkiye return to Dublin for the second time in the past two years having contested the EuroHockey Championship II, a tough baptism to life at that level where they finished in eighth place.
They did, however, pick up a win over Portugal for their first success of that magnitude and they will be keen to try and get back in contention in 2025. Müslüm Ekinci scored three goals while Müslüm Elagoz and Omer Karakus got one each in that campaign.
They are among the more experienced players in the panel along with Furkan Ataş who has 26 caps, a total which shows how rare this side do get to come together in the 11-a-side format.
Just five players have more than 10 caps to their name while Mehmet Aydin and Ekrem Ebçem will debut at the tournament.
Nonetheless, they are rising on a number of other fronts. Their Under-21 side played in the top division in July in Terrassa for the very first time having finished second in the second tier in 2022 in Czechia when Ekinci was player of the tournament.
Indoors, they will play in the top division in 2026 as they won their second division tournament in Budapest in February with six wins out of six.
In Hockey 5s, they were in sixth place in Walcz in June’s Euros, beating Czechia, Cyprus and Sweden as well as drawing with Italy.
The side is coached by Mahmut Yunus Cengiz who led club side Nizip Zeugma to a EuroHockey Club Trophy II gold in Zagreb in the spring, giving a Turkish club a place in Trophy I for the first time. Hasari Eredoğan Ataş and Kerem Özdemir all hail from the club while national champions Gaziantep Polisgücü are the other main provider of players.
Malta (World number 72)
Malta will hope to put in some big performances to land a place in Europe’s second tier in 2025, somewhere they have never been before. They have competed in Championship III for the past four editions while their only other Euro appearance was in 1970’s inaugural event when they ended 19th.
The side is captained by Thomas Degiovanni who – on 23 caps, age 27 – is the most experienced player along with his older brother Zak Degiovanni on 22 appearances.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are four debutants in the squad: Xandru Mifsud Bonnici, Shawn Dimech, Nathan Pace Gasan and Alessandro Amore.
There are also three sets of brothers in the team: Tom and Zak Degiovanni, Luke and Keith Bajada and Lukas and Silas Plaehn.
Last year the Maltese National Team competed in the Euro Hockey Division 3 in Poland where they were building on a new structure and style of play that they will continue to implement with a young squad for this tournament and next year’s competitions. They did defeat Serbia 8-0 and drew with Lithuania in an eventual fifth place finish.
The squad has been preparing throughout the summer after two of the local clubs – Qormi Daikin and Floriana Young Stars – were representing Malta in the European Club Competition in Gibraltar and continued their training programme right after.
Training camps in Malta proved to be tricky as, for the first time, the squad had six players playing for clubs abroad. This proved a valuable experience and hoping to bring their expertise into the squad and the tournament.
Captains Degiovanni says of the event: “This tournament will be a new challenge for us as a squad, as we have never competed against a squad of the likes of Ireland. Last year, we played the host nation Poland in the Division 3 competition and although the result was not in our favour, both the team and the coaching staff was very pleased with the outcome of the competition as we worked on our key values and we will continue to do so in Dublin.
“This competition is a learning curve for the team to continue to build on a system that we believe can help us develop our style of play. We have put in the work behind the scenes and will be giving it our all to ensure that we reach the targets that we have set ourselves.”
He has played his hockey in the UK for the past six years with Canterbury Hockey Club and captained the side back to the Indoor Premier League last season. He made his debut for the national team age 17, ten years ago and has started every single game since. This year will be his first year captaining the side.
He has also worked for the Euro Hockey League as a videographer and is now a Director of Hockey at St Lawrence College.
His brother Zak started playing hockey aged 6 – when Tom was 4 – with Qormi and recently moved to Budapest where he is playing for the Hungarian champions Epitok. He works as a chief engineer at Corinthia Budapest with fellow teammate Keith Bajada.
Another one to watch is the versatile Christ Agius who started in the national team as a forward before working his way back into defence after recently playing in Germany for Rahlstedter HC in the Oberliga.
Luke Bajada started playing hockey at a very young age and will be getting ready for his fourth National Team tournament in Dublin. One of his main highlights was spending four months in Turkey playing for Mugla Hockey Club. He recently competed in the EuroHockey Challenge 2 for Qormi HC where he scored 4 goals in 3 games to land his team a spot in the final. Watch out for his 3d skills and backhand shooting.
Finally, Nathan Pace is fighting for fitness; since being called up for the National Team Nathan, he has torn a ligament in his finger and a week after recovering ended up in A&E with four stitches in his knee that will be taken out in Dublin but he is determined to make his debut for his country.
Luxembourg (no ranking)
When Luxembourg hit the turf this week in Dublin, it will be their first ever senior men’s international fixture having made a number of firsts on the international stage in the past few seasons.
They played their first EuroHockey event at Under-16 in 5s in 2019 and then Under-18 boys level in 2021 on 11-a-side. Their Under-21 debut in July this year and all bar five of this panel are still Under-21.
The 18-year-old Maximilien Clarinval reprises his role as captain from the Under-21s and for the Under-18s last summer in Wales where he scored hat tricks against both Czechia and Slovakia.
Pierre Schmidt was also part of the Luexmebourg Hockey Club who won a bronze medal at the EuroHockey Club Challenge II in Gibraltar. That side was coached by Federico Tanuscio who will also be the national team coach this summer amid a very busy 2024 – he was the Irish women’a assistant coach at the FIH Nations Cup and a video technician for Italy at the Olympic qualifiers in India.
