A HAPPY EASTER FROM TALKHOCKEY RADIO!Before looking at the two quarter final matches in the EuroHockey League in Rotterdam, we should visit Berlin for the revamped EuroHockey Women's Club Champions Cup – or EuroHockey League Lite as I like to call it - where there remained some English interest by virtue of the competition still being in the Round 1 stage.
It was not a good day for the two English clubs, although Olton & West Warwicks managed to climb through to Round 2 despite a 12-0 thrashing at the hands of Amsterdam. Friday's win against Volga Telecom means that they come second in Pool A (the third and final club is eliminated) and will meet UHC Hamburg tomorrow (Monday) for a possible place in Round 3, although a win over the Germans may be a big ask.
The club I feared for most, Bowdon Hightown, did comparatively well against Den Bosch, only losing 5-0 to a Dutch side that has traditionally been the best in Europe. Having failed to secure a win in either of their Pool D matches, Bowdon will not qualify to play for a Round 3 place.
Meanwhile in Rotterdam, we had the opportunity to see all three of the sides who had knocked out the English contenders on Friday, in their quarter final matches.
Back in Round One in Paris I would quite happily have tipped Rott-Weiss Koln as potential finalists. They have, after all, acquired some awesome talent, including Timo and Benjamin Wess, the Zeller brothers Phillip and Christopher, Tibor Weisenborn and Jan-Marco Montag to name but six. So it was a surprise to see them play out a distinctly lacklustre game against RC Polo Barcelona, the side which was Reading's nemesis of Friday. A late goal by Barcelona scored by Pau Quemada sank the German's chances of proceeding through to the semi finals. Score in that match, 3-2 to Barcelona.
The words "destroyed" and "humiliated" were going through my head after Amsterdam took a 2-0 lead against Leuven in the first ten minutes. Robert Tigges' penalty corner goal in just over 60 seconds, looked as if it might be the first of a dozen. But, as Beeston discovered on Friday, Leuven is not the easiest of sides to play, and they took some notable scalps last season on the way to a semi-final place. Indeed, they were soon back in contention with a beautiful goal from Fabrice Bourdeaud'Hui – and don't ask me to pronounce that.
Leuven seemed to be causing Amsterdam some serious issues and a defensive lapse saw the two sides draw level with a penalty corner conversion by their Irish striker, Mitch Darling. The equaliser signalled the drizzle, which has haunted this competition on and off for the last two days, to turn to rain, and the match looked as if was going to an unwanted one-to-on shoot out decider. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief, when Valentin Verga scored the winner for Amsterdam in the last two minutes of the match.
The result was a great credit to Leuven and Beeston may now be able to take some credit for suffering a defeat at the hands of the Belgians after all.
The second set of quarter finals will be played tomorrow. These are:
Rotterdam v Atletic Terrassa (12:00)
Bloemendaal v UHC Hamburg (14:30)
Times are local to Rotterdam
