With the second half of the FIH Hockey Professional League 2024-25 quick approaching, we’re catching up with gamers and coaches of all 9 males’s and ladies’s groups to take the temperature of their season by means of the primary half and discover their targets for the remaining matches. In at this time’s interview, we communicate with Max Caldas and Carlos Cuenca, coaches of the boys’s and ladies’s Spanish groups, the Purple Sticks.
Max Caldas
“The primary a part of the Professional League in Australia was very optimistic. We had been very glad about it, I feel we performed some good hockey and had been capable of get numerous new gamers into the programme and provides them the publicity to play these video games. Extra senior gamers are coming again to this Professional League stage, however the purpose is all the time the identical, to begin with simply specializing in ourselves.”
“Generally you simply want affirmation that you just’re bettering by means of your performances. I feel the Professional League is a vital match in itself. It’d even provide the likelihood to qualify for the World Cup without having to depend on the European Championship, in case you end excessive sufficient within the standings. Because the Netherlands, Australia, and Belgium are already certified, there may very well be a ticket accessible. What we’d like, in all our kinds, is to have a very stable Professional League—having the ability to compete and put collectively just a few robust performances in a row towards prime groups. We’ll have that chance within the coming days.”
Carlos Cuenca
“We’re a newly promoted crew, and we’re very clear about our major goal: to remain within the Professional League. Though our work, efficiency, and outcomes have put us in a privileged place, we don’t lose sight of our focus. Now, we face 4 very robust rivals, so we should preserve our focus and proceed working with the identical mindset. The objective stays the identical and is crucial for us: to take care of our place within the league.”
“It’s been a special interval as a result of it entails the coexistence between golf equipment and nationwide groups. It’s a really advanced time the place now we have to just accept all contexts and conditions, respect the work being achieved on the golf equipment, however on the similar time, nationwide crew gamers should all the time be at the next stage, sustaining their worldwide rhythm. We’ve been lucky to work fairly intensively in the course of the intervals allowed by the calendar, and now we have made probably the most of these moments. Clearly, we received’t be on the ideally suited peak health for this kind of competitors and matchups, however we’re very clear about which video games we must be at 100%, and I consider we’ll obtain that.”
