Red Lions: ‘Equip Hendrickx’s gap with 3-4 players, who also have a good corner’ | hockey world cup

The Red Lions trained yesterday in the shadow of the huge Kalinga Stadium, without Alexander Hendrickx. He has no right to speak and not to train. He underwent a scan of his damaged knee yesterday morning, the result is expected today.

Losing Hendrickx for the rest of the tournament would be a major loss, although of course there are still some local specialists among the Belgians. “What’s good with this team is that we can share that,” rejoices Loïck Luypaert, himself a specialist. “Tom Boon and Tanguy Cosyns also have a good corner. We’ll try to spread that pressure from Alex over 3-4 men.”

Hendrickx was the World Cup and Games top scorer, each time gold followed for Belgium. “He’s a very big part of our team, unfortunately we don’t have that available anymore. But this team can handle any setbacks.”

National coach Michel van de Heuvel is also looking for alternatives: “It’s clear that Hendrickx has fantastic stats and has been there for the Red Lions at important times. But we shouldn’t forget that this group has several talented players, who also have this specialty. . .

“They are a bit more unpredictable. And we can have other options to make it difficult for the opponent. I think we are able to handle that well.”

Luypaert and his mates aren’t worried: “The funny thing is that we’ve been training on this corner for years. I’ll just be myself and Tom and Tanguy will maybe just push 5 or 6 extra balls for have a good feeling. We are going to start the game with the idea that we are really going to take corners.”

The good news for tomorrow is that all other worries about injury and illness are gone. Arthur Van Doren, who suffered from a blocked back, is handled with care.

The best defender in the world did not train yesterday: “My back is fine”, he reassured our man in India. “It was tough for a while, the annoying thing is it kept coming back, but for now it’s over,” he winked.

In other good news, the opponent in the quarter-finals is New Zealand and not India. The antipodes eliminated the host country in the play-off after a thriller with penalties.

New Zealand are only third in their group after 2 defeats (against the Netherlands and Malaysia). Normally, Belgium is much stronger than New Zealand: Belgium is 2nd in the world ranking, New Zealand 12th.

Van Doren: “We’ve hit New Zealand a lot lately. Very often in a last group game, where we were already sure it didn’t matter much anymore…”

“They’re a team that always have a unique game in such a tournament. After a mediocre group stage, they now surprise India, it won’t happen twice. And then we’ll be done.”

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For Belgium, world and Olympic champion, the tournament has only just begun. Luypaert: “It’s time for the money. In recent years we have always been looking forward to the knockout stage.”

“This time the intention was to avoid this intermediate match, given the problems we had this tournament. We can use the rest for the semi-finals and hopefully the final.”

Clean core experience speaks, they had to do it earlier in this tournament without Van Doren, Dohmen, De Kerpel, Gougnard. “I think we’re a bit calmer than before. That comes with age.”

“The staff also solve everything well. The players have a lot of confidence. We played a very good group stage, which was somewhat underexposed because of all the little problems. But we solve everything internally.”