“Once the umpire blew the whistle, we were like, phew…” said France midfielder Hugo Genestet.
Such was the frenetic end to the Frenchmen’s seemingly long wait of making a mark after a 28-year-old absence from the Hockey World Cup arena.
World No. 20 France, playing their first World Cup since 1990 and entering as the lowest-ranked team among the 16 that descended in Bhubaneswar, edged past debutants China by a solitary goal in the cross-over encounter to make it to the quarterfinals here on Monday.
And if not for a couple of acrobatic saves by goalkeeper Arthur Thieffry in the last couple of minutes, things could’ve well gone into the penalty shootouts after Timothee Clement gave the French a 1-0 lead in the 36th minute.
The Chinese earned a penalty corner (PC) late in the final quarter, and with a clever variation by the dragflickers, the ball looked set to find the net until Thieffry stretched his left leg out to block a speedy low flick.
Seconds later, a needless rough tackle by Hugo gave China another foot in the door via a PC, but this time it was Thieffry’s right hand that saved the day for France.
It was a fitting reward for a French team that has identified this World Cup as a stepping stone to charting an ambitious route towards the podium at the 2024 Olympics to be held in their country.
After a slow start that saw them lose to New Zealand and draw with Spain, France detoured to take the fast lane to the knockouts by stunning Olympic champions Argentina 5-3 in their final league game.
They’ll take on Australia in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, and if they ever needed a gentle reminder about the task at hand, they only needed to look at their opponents on the day.
China went the other way than France, holding the 7th-ranked England in their opener and matching goal for goal with the higher-ranked Ireland too. Yet it was their final pool game against Australia thatseemed to suck the life out of their campaign, the world champions completely blowing them away 11-0.
England tasted a neat 2-0 victory over New Zealand in the first cross-over stage encounter of this tournament on Monday. Goals from Will Calnan and Luke Taylor secured the Englishmen’s entry into the quarterfinals, where they will take on Argentina.
England 2 (Will Calnan 25, Luke Taylor 44) beat New Zealand 0, France 1 (Timothee Clement 36) beat China 0