#Dutch women #dominate #China while men defeat #India
Lausanne #Switzerland (MNP) The #Netherlands women marked their return to #international #hockey with a dominant 4-0 victory against #China as FIH Hockey Pro League action headed to #Eindhoven, so extending their unbeaten record in the #tournament so far. It was a night for the debutants in the Netherlands men’s team, three of them scoring in their team’s 4-1 victory over India.
(Women’s) Netherlands vs China 4-0
China started stronger than they had in any of their matches at the mini-tournament in London, but conceding two early goals meant they never stood much of a chance against the world and Olympic champions.
The first attacking move for the Dutch was initiated by Felice Albers who found Yibbi Jansen in the circle. Jansen then played it back for Albers to fire it in for the 1-0 lead. The Dutch were back on attack soon after with Luna Fokke crossing the ball in from the left side. In trying to stop the ball, Tan Jinzhuang only succeeded in turning it into her own goal to double the Dutch lead.
China had their best chance of the game in the second quarter when Zou Meirong found herself one-on-one with Anne Veenendaal. But her scooped effort over the keeper’s head went wide of goal and the score remained 2-0 to the Netherlands at half time.
A lovely bit of skill from Marijn Veen, running from right to left, saw the 26-year-old adding another goal to the Dutch tally.
China earned their first penalty corner of the match soon after, but the resulting shot hit the crossbar. The Dutch then went on the counterattack and a goalmouth scramble ended with Chinese keeper Liu Ping backhanding the ball in with her glove, the goal credited to the Netherlands’ Joosje Burg.
That saw the Netherlands securing the 4-0 victory and with that extending their winning streak to 16 matches.
Felice Albers was named player of the match and said: “I think we scored a lot of nice goals – the way we want to play, but we have to score more. That’s the thing we have to work on but we scored some really good goals and had some nice attacking so it was good today… Our defending is really good and we have some good players who can attack and we can score a lot of goals so I think that’s the power of our team.”
