Chile scrapped past Egypt by a solitary goal in the battle of minnows in the FIH Odisha Hockey Men’s Junior World Cup at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Thursday.
Raimundo Valenzuela scored the only goal of the match in the 46th minute. Daniel Beroggi won the player of the match award with his adept manoeuvring.
Both the teams toiled hard and gave a tough challenge to each other. They also created a lot of scoring opportunities, but failed to capitalise on those. They also spoiled many penalty conversion chances in the process.
However, Chile was a little bit opportunistic as Valenzuela struck the only goal for his team by piercing the post in the second half of the match following a barren first half.
Egypt players tried their best to dominate proceedings and press for the equaliser in the last quarter, but Chile’s defense rose to the occasion and prevented all the scoring opportunities.
Despite the victory, Chile skipper Nicolas Abujatum was not satisfied with the performance of his team.
“We lost many scoring opportunities in the match. We could have scored more goals. However, it was an amazing tournament and our guys learnt a lot,” said Nicolas.
The captain rued lack of support for the game back home.
“There is no support for field hockey back home. Our players have to toil hard to pursue their passion. Hopefully, they have got the much needed international exposure in this tournament and our performance curve will rise gradually,” he added.