BHUBANESWAR: IT doesn’t get any better than this. In one corner, The Netherlands, one of hockey’s first aristocrats. Their opponents? Belgium, the sport’s newest upstarts playing in what will be their first World Cup final. What makes the final that extra bit special is the route Belgium took to go from also-rans to potential world champions.
Even as late as the early 2000s, most of their players had an inferiority complex when facing The Netherlands. In fact, most of the budding hockey players in Belgium woke up to posters of Teun de Nooijer, a two-time Dutch Olympic gold-medallist. They aspired to be like their geographical neighbours but didn’t have the tools to be like them.
That gradually changed when their federation — Royal Belgian Hockey Federation (RBHA) — started pumping in money into their youth programmes. Tom Boon and John-John Dohmen were the first ones to graduate to the senior team in the late 2000s. Since then, that feeling of little brother in them has evaporated.
From feeling inferior, there is just respect when you talk to the Belgians about the final on Sunday. “We respect them and I am sure they respect us,” reigning world player of the year Arthur van Doren said. “The matches between the two teams produce good battles... always attacking, free-flowing hockey and a lot of goals.”
The feeling in the opposite camp is similar. “It’s going to be an exciting game, that’s for sure,” Dutch coach Max Caldas said. “They are a very talented side.” The final may not have Australia — a first since 1998 — or the hosts but this one has all the makings of a special clash.Be sure to make yourselves heard at the Kalinga Stadium for one final time before the caravan exits town.