Men’s Hockey World Cup 2023

 by Attish Das

This year the Men’s FIH Hockey world cup is taking place and is the 15th version of this event after happening just over 4 years ago in November 2018 dating back all the way to 1971 where Spain hosted. However, this year the Hockey World Cup is being hosted by India, with 2 main stadiums: the Kalinga stadium in Bhubaneswar with a capacity of 15000 and the Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium in Rourkela with a capacity of 21800. 16 teams are playing in this tournament and are listed below as their given groups and current positions in them as of 19^th January 2023:

A	B	C	D
Australia	Belgium	Netherlands	England
Argentina	Germany	Malaysia	India
France	South Korea	New Zealand	Spain
South Africa	Japan	Chile	Wales

 

In each group, the team who is first in the table goes straight to the quarter finals, and the second and third go to a round called a ‘Cross Over’, where they get a chance to go to the quarter finals. So far, there are two teams who have qualified for the quarter finals: England and the Netherlands (other two predicted to be Australia and Belgium), with 4 countries going to the Cross Over: Malaysia who will play against Spain, and India playing against New Zealand (With other two matches predicted to be Argentina against South Korea and France against Germany).

The 2018 World Cup was won by Belgium, who are doing well this year and certainly can willingly win again, however these matches can be very competitive and nerve racking as with other sports, so only time will tell who will win the precious world cup this year.