Malaysian Juniors and the Seville Tournament.

The Malaysian Juniors had gone to Spain to participate in the Seville Hockey Tournament. In fact at Seville there were 3 tournaments i.e Under 21, Under 18 and Under 16. At all the tournaments the teams were European nations except for Malaysia at the Under 21.

In the the Under 21, Malaysia had to pit their talents against some of the top teams in Europe namely Spain, England and Germany. All these teams are participating at the Junior World Cup 2009 in June, which is co-hosted by Malaysia and Singapore. Effectively the tournament becomes a good trial run for the teams,

The results of the tournament:

• Spain 2-1 Malaysia.
• Spain 1-5 Germany.
• England 3-3 Malaysia.
• England 3-5 Spain.
• Germany 2-2 Malaysia.
• Germany 3-6 England.

Final placing as follows:

• Spain 6 pts.
• England 4 pts.
• Germany 4 pts.
• Malaysia 2 pts.

The results were extracted from FIH website.

At this stage the final placing is not a major point. It is Malaysia's performance with some of the best teams in the world must be the basis of any discussions. 2 draws and a defeat is fairly a good result. The key issue is how did we perform in each game and the other question is whether the opponents were playing on a lower "gear".

More important the coaches have got a feel for the European teams and can carefully plan their strategy and game tactics for the JWC. Ultimately it is their performance at JWC that matters and the team has 6 weeks to perfect their strength and weakness.