The Netherlands team beat the Czechs on penalties on the first day of the world Cup in Irkutsk

In the late afternoon of Sunday, March 1, the losers of the morning matches met on the ice of the Record stadium: the Netherlands lost to the Hungarians (2: 3), and the Czechs lost to the Ukrainians (0:2).

More experienced hockey players from the country of tulips took over the initiative. In the 15th minute, when the third corner was delivered, they opened the scoring: Menezes van Weyden accurately struck. Encouraged by the relatively rapid success, the nominal owners continued to attack, but they could not increase their advantage. At the same time, the Czechs did not sit back in defense, looking for happiness at someone else's gate, even if also to no avail.

At the beginning of the second half, the Netherlands crushed their opponents and spent several minutes in their half of the field. But, as sports wisdom says, you don't score – they score for you. Tomas Benak restored the balance, although in this case it was not without an error of the goalkeeper of the national team of the Netherlands-1:1.

Now the Czechs felt clearly on the horse, confidently acted both in defense and in attack. In one of the counterattacks, Petr Vrshanski jumped out one - on – one with the goalkeeper and got the better of him - 1:2.

After the time-out, the Netherlands rushed to win back, made every effort to do so and managed to get even literally «on the flag», at the end of the main time – 2: 2.

Luck once again turned against the Czech team - in a series of 12-meter strikes. Michael Brat's players were close to winning – 1: 3, but still lost-4: 3. If you're unlucky, you're unlucky. Well, the Netherlands, it turns out, twice during the match escaped from defeat.

Michael Brett, head coach of the Czech national team:

– The defeats of our teams in the first matches of the championship meant that in the face-to-face confrontation, both teams will fight only to win, there is no place to retreat. In the afternoon, we conducted a "debriefing" and tried to correct the mistakes made in the meeting with the Ukrainians. We changed the structure of the game, which worked to a certain extent. It's a pity that we missed the second goal in the end.

Thomas Engstrom, head coach of the Netherlands national team:

– It was a tough game, there was a struggle for the ball in every part of the field. Both teams really wanted to win. In the first half we dominated, in the second – the Czechs, who put serious pressure on us. But we survived and equalized at the end of the match. Well, we were more fortunate in the penalty shootout. In General, we continued to play the game that we started in the morning match with the Hungarians, but then we were not able to bring a positive result.

Jiri Doskocil, Czech national team player

– The opponents had more initiative, but we managed to score twice after the break, thus getting ahead. Then we got under their pressure and couldn't stand it, let them level the score.

Mees van Wichen player of the national team of the Netherlands:

– In the first half of the match, we controlled the ball more, successfully carried out the coaching setup, which resulted in a goal scored. We hoped that we would continue to have good luck in the attack. However, the Czechs did everything possible to change the course of the match in their favor. Still, we were lucky at the end of the match and in the penalty shootout.

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