The men’s EuroHockey 5s Championship in Walcz is set to have a new winner this year with 10 teams all vying for medals with action beginning on Wednesday in Poland.
In 2022 at the same venue, the Netherlands and Belgium reached the final of the competition but both have since stepped back from this format, allowing new nations a chance to make their mark.
Hosts Poland were best placed back then and they will begin their campaign in an initial five-team group alongside Cyprus, Türkiye and new additions Italy and Czechia.
Pool B, meanwhile, has fourth place finishers from 2022 Switzerland competing with Finland, Sweden, Ukraine and Lithuania.
The round-robin group stages run from Wednesday to Friday with the top two reaching the semi-finals; third and fourth in each group play off for fifth to eighth while last place in the pool phase contest the ninth/tenth playoff.
All the action will be streamed live for free for all those registered to the www.eurohockeytv.org website.
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Team by team preview
Pool A
Cyprus
Cyprus have a large contingent of their 2022 ninth place finishers returning for another shot in Walcz on EuroHockey 5s highest stage. They have seven of the team back once again
Panos Panayiotopoulos, Orestis Savvides and goalkeeper Samuel Charalombos are the ones coming into the line-up while Nicolas Yiakoumi, Constantinos Stylianou and top scorer Antonis Efthymiou are not involved from that vintage.
James Nicandrou will be one to watch in front of goal, bringing a record five goals in seven caps with him into the competition. Tunc Ted Ilgin captains the team for the second successive competition.
Czechia
Czechia are playing in their first senior men’s Hockey 5s event but they have named an initial squad of 12 players packed with legends in their home country. Ondrej Vudmaska is back on the international stage for the first time since 2016 having previously played in the 2007 indoor World Cup among many other tournaments.
He is 39 as is Tomáš Hanus while Martin Hanus, Martin Lehovec and David Vacek have a similar bank of knowledge, all playing between 50 and 100 caps in the 11-a-side format. Perhaps the star man is striker Lukas Plochý who is credited with over 130 goals across indoor and outdoor formats.
Italy
Italy will play in their first men’s Hockey 5s tournament with a side featuring some well-travelled members. Captain Mattia Amorosini helped SCHC to promotion to the Hoofdklasse in the Netherlands. Marco Moretto plays with KHC Dragons in Belgium while Simone Pagliara will know many of the Swiss side well – he lines out for Rotweiss Wettingen on the club front.
Indeed, only Carlos Alberto Espejo has no prior international experience in an Italian international shirt. Amorosini has over 70 caps between indoor and outdoor appearances while the likes of Alessandro Muzzioli and Pagliara have been hugely prolific on the indoor scene.
The panel have met for training in the north of Italy as Castello d’Agogno, Pavia on a dedicated pitch before providing homework for each team member to work on tactics.
Poland
Poland come into the competition having finished in fourth spot at the World Cup in Oman earlier this year and they have eight of that side available here once more. The two changes see Mateusz Popiołkowski come in for goalkeeping duties in place of Maciej Pacanowski while Marcin Szczesny replaces Jakub Rakowicz.
They have plenty of points of attack with Damian Jarzembowski top-scoring in Muscat with youngster Jakub Hołosyniuk and Eryk Bembenek also prolific, going around one goal per game.
The side features a quarter of players from WKS Grunwald Poznań and is coached by former SV Arminen boss Dariusz Rachwalski. Poland were bronze medalists in 2022, finishing behind the Netherlands and Belgium who are not taking part this time around.
Türkiye
Due to the intensity of their national league and national holidays, their time together as a full group has been limited but they will be looking to build on their seventh place finish a couple of years ago.
Their go-to man for goals is likely to be Müslüm Elagöz who scored 11 times in the last edition in Walcz while other key men will be Furkan Ataş and captain Onur Açıkgöz.
There is something of a feel-good factor in Turkish hockey as well with a number of the players involved here also in the Nizip Zeugma side who won the EuroHockey Club Trophy II at Whitsun to elevate the country to a highest level on that front.
Pool B
Finland
Finland’s preparation has been focused around three training camps in Helsinki, working with their Under-21 squad, and meeting online to discuss tactics and work on video footage. This is allied to a new style of fitness plan to prepare them for the intensive physical strains of Hockey 5s.
Santeri Määttänen makes his debut after several awards as the Finnish Hockey Associations Player of the Year and EuroHockey Club Challenge III young player of the tournament. He is an energetic all-rounder with a good sense for goal scoring.
Pekka Lehtonen started hockey at a much later stage in life than most players, only picking up a stick at his early 30s. However, he quickly turned into a reliable defender and has been absolutely solid and a calming presence in the Finnish defence now.
Jussi Luhta is a legendary goalkeeper in Finnish terms; he has played hockey longer than some of his team mates have been alive. It’s been said that Finland’s number 1 functions solely on coffee and pasta salad, but he would tell you it’s his regular attendance at punk concerts that keep him truly young.
“Our aim is that this tournament will really be the start of kicking off a new long-term project in Finnish Hockey,” says head coach Colin Clarke.
“We are putting in serious efforts in multiple areas to grow the sport domestically and build a strong platform to support the national team.
“We look to continue a consistent and structured style of hockey across all age groups and teams. We will take this through to Hockey 11s and indoor hockey, over many years, building on our tactics, knowledge and experience together.”
Lithuania
The long-list entered by Lithuania is one bursting with youngsters with nine of the panel of 15 initially named aged 21 or under. It is their first Hockey 5s international tournament although a couple of them did play at this same Walcz venue in 2017 at Under-16 level.
Before that, Lukas Janukaitis was also prolific at that agre group, firing in seven goals in a youth international competition on home turf in 2016.
The country played host to an international Hockey 5s coaches seminar in Šiauliai last weekend – alongside coaches from Estonia – under the tutelage of Norbert Nederlof, the former Polish women’s coach. It was organised by current men’s and women’s Lithuania team manager Ugne Chmeliauskaitė and they will hope to use those tactical innovations to bolster their performance this week.
Sweden
Sweden line-up with a new set of players compared to two years ago with just four of the side who finished in 12th place in 2022 returning for this year’s campaign.
As such, their team motto is: “All are important, we need each other to do our best. Trust in each other, work hard and be proud.”
This time, they will travel to the event by car to avoid some of the pitfalls that befell them in Walcz last time. All their equipment was lost during their flights to Poland and so they had to draw on the support of the hockey community to help load sticks, shoes and shinguards to help them play.
In 2022, Jan-Olof Rydin was crucial, scoring nine times while captain Filip Wilander is another central figure.
Switzerland
Switzerland are one of the most prolific teams on the senior Hockey 5s circuit, playing full roles in both the 2022 Euros where they finished fourth, this year’s World Cup in Oman which ended in 10th spot and also when they hosted a tournament in central Lausanne.
Goalkeeper Lars Kleikemper, captain Patrick Krüsi and Elias Brönnimann have played full roles in those three competitions to date. Indeed, Brönniman produced some major highlight reel moments in Muscat and ended up with eight goals to his name.
They will have confidence, too, from their 9-0 success against group rivals Finland and 14-1 against Sweden, boosting their potential to reach the semi-finals from this five-team group.
Ukraine
Sixth-placed in 2022 in Walcz, Ukraine’s long list of players named for the competition features all 10 of those who took part in the event two years ago with plenty of experience in the offing.
Dmytro Luppa captains the team while there is a lot of potential in their panel via the likes of rangy striker Bohdan Kovalenko, the powerful rising star Yurii Dzemukh. The tournament continues a busy year for the Ukraine side with many of them overlapping club commitments with January’s Olympic qualifiers and the top tier of the EuorHockey Indoor Championship.
Last summer, they did make a breakthrough by reaching the final of the EuroHockey Championship II in Dublin, their best performance on that stage.
