The women’s EuroHockey Indoor Club Cup Pool B line-up for this weekend in Siauliai, Lithuania features clubs with vastly varying experience levels on this stage as regulars MSC Sumchanka and SK Slavia Prague meet debutantes SCHC and Ege Yildizlari.
The four sides will be competing for a place in the top two in the group on Friday and Saturday morning, hoping for a spot in the semi-finals and – potentially – in Sunday’s decider.
Today, we look at how each team shapes up ahead of the challenge. (To read the Pool A preview, click here)
Pool B – team by team preview
MSC Sumchanka (Ukraine)
MSC Sumchanka are looking to build further on their back-to-back indoor Club Cup bronze medals, coming four years apart in 2020 and 2024 due to the cancelation of three successive years of the competition.
They won the Ukraine national indoor title for the 18th time this season and they have a huge wealth of experience in their line-up. Captain Yevheniya and Kateryna Shokalenko are chief among them while 11 of the 12 players from the 2024 vintage remain in their panel.
Karyna Leonova, Anastasiia Shyshyna and Kateryna Popova are all key figures. Indeed, the 21-year-old Shyshyna was player of the tournament in Alanya a year ago
The side trains indoors together four times a week and once in the gym so they feel well prepared to be a contender once again.
“Hockey it’s not just sport, it’s family” is the team motto.
Ege Yildizlari (Türkiye)
Ege Yildizlari are ready for a brand new experience as they make their debut on the European stage. They were the Turkish indoor champions for the very first time in 2024 and they followed that up with bronze in the Super League earlier this year.
Their line-up is a very young and dynamic one with a large contingent coming with only the captain Tuğçe Şahiner aged over 21 in their panel. They do, however, have eight of the Turkish national team athletes who were third in Under-21 Euros in Wałcz in January.
Among them are that Under-21 team’s captain Aleyna Başbuğ whose range of passing from the back will be a feature as will the sharp-shooting and skills of Sila Erkoç. Gülcan Paksoy’s feisty presence and the attacking prowess of Sude Nur Kurt give them a range of options to make an impact.
SK Slavia Prague (Czechia)
The close ties between SK Slavia Prague and the Czechia women’s national team should serve them well as they transition quickly from an historic FIH Indoor World Cup bronze medal to the club scene.
For one, the club and national team coaching team is the same – Tomáš Procházka as head coach, Martin Capouch as assistant – while numerous players overlap.
They will hope top scorer Adéla Lehovcová, Nikol Babická, Natálie Hájkova, Natálie Nováková and Jinřiška Neusser will all come through without too many concerns following the intense World Cup in Croatia.
They were sixth a year ago in Alanya and are competing at this level for the tenth time. Their best previous performances saw them win bronze in both 2014 in Cambrai and 2016 in Minsk.
SCHC (Netherlands)
SCHC’s women are playing in the top women’s European indoor competition for the first time following their debut win in the competition in 2024. It came via a 3-0 final win over HDM with Ginella Zerbo, Mette Winter and Trijntje Beljaars scoring while goalkeeper Marsha Zwezerijn got the clean sheet.
This season, Winter and Beljaars have since graduated to the Dutch outdoor squad and they missed out on a final spot at the hands of Den Bosch 4-3 after finishing in second place in their group phase.
Nonetheless, they still have lots of star quality with Zerbo, Elzemiek Zandee and Jip Dicke among the household names. Laurien Leurink did move on from their outdoor panel but she has remained with the Bilthoven club indoors and gives them a huge wealth of know-how.
Captain Anna de Geus was part of the Dutch team who won the FIH Indoor World Cup in 2023.
