Hockey players silence Argentines with resounding Hockey Pro League win

Dutch hockey players have taken sporting revenge on Argentina, who painfully ended national coach Louis van Gaal’s dream at the World Cup last week.

In a crowded stadium in Santiago del Estero, northern Argentina, where many white and blue football shirts were on display and the World Cup songs that were sung in Qatar for weeks, Orange were 3-1 too strong for the host country.

Later tonight, the hockey players will also play their second Pro League game in the same stadium against… Argentina.

In terms of hockey, Argentina has for years been the great rival of the Netherlands, Olympic champion and reigning world champion. For example, Orange were 3-1 too strong in the last World Cup final – then led by national coach Jamilon Mülders – last July.

And that they had drawn extra motivation from the performance of Lionel Messi and his men at the World Cup was already evident before the game. The Argentinian ladies proved to be able to keep a good ball (on foot) themselves.

For the Netherlands, the question was how it would go in the first serious confrontation under new national coach Paul van Ass, who was appointed with the mission not only to keep Orange at the top, but also to ending the culture of fear which prevailed up to and including the Tokyo Olympics.

The Orange got off to a great start: the Netherlands went down 2-0 in no time. First, Pien Dicke, after a year and a half out of injury, was back with the orange team, watching for a rebound from a penalty corner and kicking the ball into the far corner with his backhand.

Joosje Burg made it 2-0 after a fine escape, leaving the Argentine goalkeeper without a chance on a pass from Dicke. When Yibbi Jansen shoved a strong penalty corner into the roof of the goal early in the second quarter (3-0), the spoils seemed to have been won.

It was outside the Argentinian temperament. After an Argentinian goal was repelled by Belgian referee Delphine Delforge after consultation with the VAR (the ball came on one foot when approaching the goal), Josine Koning had to fish the ball out of her goal for the first time in the third trimester.

Agustina Garzalany fired a penalty corner, which was hit en route, into the Dutch goal. It was already clear that the Argentines were going to step up their game when Eugenia Trinchetti and Renée van Laarhoven got into a fight. Both received a yellow card.

Argentina held off the Netherlands, but Koning kept his goal clean with a number of superb saves. Moments later, Van Laarhoven again showed his intransigence in a brutal collision with his opponent. She left the field shaken, but the damage was not too bad and she returned to the field a little later.

For both teams, the candle slowly went out in the fourth quarter and Argentina were no longer able to become truly dangerous.

Earlier, Orange also won the first four-game Pro League game in Argentina 2-1 against Great Britain. Van Ass’s side are now second behind the Argentinians, who already have two wins and two draws to their name.

The hockey players will play against the British again on Friday, after which the trip will conclude with a second game against Argentina.