HAHK Mladost play host to the men’s EuroHockey Club Trophy II in Zagreb with the action hitting the turf on Thursday. The Croatian hosts are last on court on day one when they meet HC Bra in Pool B where they are joined by Poland’s KS Pomorzanin Toruń and Denmark’s Copenhagen HC.
Pool A has another Danish side in Slagelse, Türkiye’s Nizip Zeugma, Portugal’s Casa Pia and Ukraine’s HC SHVSM – Olimpia Vinnitsa region.
All will be trying to land top spot in the pool which would bring them to Sunday’s final and bring potential promotion for their nation to Trophy I level for 2025.
** To follow the live scores and match data, click here
EuroHockey Club Trophy II Men – team by team overview
Pool A
Slagelse Hockeyklub (Denmark)
Qualified as: Denmark’s runners-up
The 2023 Danish Cup winners are currently leading the way in their league and have also qualified for the Danish Cup final on May 25th.
Among their key players are Nikolaj Moll who, despite only being 22 years old, will be playing his seventh outdoor Euro Club event. German Jonas Diesing is an experienced player in the Bundesliga who plays in his fifth Euro Club event. Youngsters Rasmus Westrup, Magnus Thorsted and Oliver Sørensen are others to watch out for.
They have a bit of history against group rivals Casa Pia, losing 5-4 to them in 2021 and then drawing 3-3 in 2023 in Trophy I thanks to a last minute Marius Denta goal.
Nizip Zeugma SK (Türkiye)
Qualified as: National Champions
Last season’s Turkish champions come into this year’s competition off the back of a silver medal in their Super League, swapping places with Gaziantep Polisgücü as the top two shared a 0-0 draw in the final series of games.
It meant Nizip missed out on the title by a single point with their rivals winning three and drawing two of the championship round fixtures. Central to their attacking force will be Ömer Anil Karakus and the corners of Ataş Furkan.
This is just their third European appearance but they have a formidable record, winning gold in 2022’s Challenge III and then again in Challenge II last year. This will be their first test at this elevated level.
Casa Pia AC (Portugal)
Qualified as: National runners-up
Casa Pia are contesting their fourth Euro club outdoor competition having finished sixth in Trophy I in 2023 and 2019 while they won silver at Trophy II in 2021. As such, they have a good pedigree but are coming into the competition off the back of a tough semi-final defeat in the Portuguese competition, losing 10-3 on aggregate to AD Lousada.
It follows a third place finish in the regular season and so they will be looking to end their season on a high. They do have two ace goalscorers in their line-up with Vasco Ribeiro topping the charts with 19 in total while Louis Mielle scored the most from play with 14 from his tally of 16 goals.
HC SHVSM – Olimpia Vinnitsa region (Ukraine)
Qualified as: National runners-up
Olimpia Vinnitsa arrive in Croatia with a panel light on Euro club experience with the club – in this guise – making it’s EuroHockey club debut as Ukraine’s second entrant.
Just six of their wider 32-player panel have contested competitions like this before – all with other clubs – but they do have the hugely experienced Iaroslav Hordey as one of their goalkeeping options. Demian Mazurkevych and Yevhenii Kotiuzhynskyi are the other two players with enhanced know-how of how these competitions play out.
Pool B
HC Bra (Italy)
Qualified as: National Champions
Italy’s double winners are the defending champions of Italy and the Coppa Italia winners are playing their first outdoor Euro club competition since 2019 when they were Challenge I champions in Poland.
Priyesh Bhana – New Zealand Blackstick international player – is a key figure as the current player-coach. He has been in situ with the club for a long period, playing in the EHL with the club in 2014 in the Euro Hockey League.
Other important figures are Ukraine international Andrii Koshelenko and Italian stars Francesco Padovani, Marco Garbaccio and Alessandro Giraudo.
Bhana says of their chances: “We are looking to bring our experience and desire to win another eurohockey tournament, after our first place in our last EuroHockey tournament.
They are the “most winning team” in Italy in the new millenium with over 30 national championship titles in the last 20 years in all formats (Outdoor, Indoor, Coppa Italia, Supercoppa and EuroHockey).
HAHK Mladost (Croatia)
Qualified as: National Champions
The Croatian side are looking to build on their incredible performance in Vienna in February when they won bronze at the Indoor Club Cup.
They are currently in second place in their national championship and in the final of the national cup. The side is powered by the likes of brothers Gregor and Anže Fujs (player of the tournament in EuroHockey Indoor Championships) and Ukraine forward Vitalii Kalinchuck. All three have over 50 international caps to their names.
Anže and Gregor have experience of playing in the German and Austrian championships.
Their first goal is to try to win the first two places in the group and thus stay in Trophy II, setting a base to go for the final of the tournament. They finished in third place last year in this competition.
KS Pomorzanin Toruń (Poland)
Qualified as: National Champions
KS Pomorzanin Toruń come into the competition on a high having guaranteed they top the Super Liga regular season table in Poland thanks to their 2-1 awat win over KS Warta Poznań. The result puts them out of reach of Stella Gniezno and means they will be the top seed for their finals weekend coming up in two weeks’ time.
Ex-international Krystian Makowski captains the side that can also call upon the experience of Ukraine’s Dmytro Luppa while they feature current Polish international panelists Wojciech Rutkowski and Marcin Kuźba. They were gold medalists a year ago in the Challenge I and the vast majority of the panel is still at the club.
Copenhagen Hockeyclub (Denmark)
Qualified as: National Champions
The Danish champions are looking to build on their debut at Trophy II level last year which saw them end in fourth place overall, missing out on third place at the hands of group rivals HAHK Mladost 3-1.
Theirs has been a mixed season thus far outdoor season as they sit in third spot with three wins out of six games – with a win and a loss in 2024 from the two games played – after half a dozen new players came in this season.
Captain Rasmus Mundeling is a central figure while there is an international flavour to their line-up with players from Germany, England, Japan, Spain and the Netherlands part of the club’s make-up.
