Argentina Open Title Defence With 1-0 Win Over Australia

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- Defending champions and world number one Argentina have to flex their muscles for close to an hour, before escaping with 1-0 narrow win against Australia in the Hockey Men’s Junior World Cup 2023 at the Bukit Jalil National Hockey Stadium, today.

Twenty-year-old midfielder Ignacio Nardolillo was in the right place at the right time to tap-in a field goal in the 58th minute in the Group A opener. 

The effort also made him as the ‘Man of the Match’ after the Los Leoncitos (Little Lions) squad missed two penalty corner opportunities, earlier. 

“We were doing everything to find the goal, I think we worked very well and were waiting for the moment to score and fortunately we were at the right place to score,” said Nardolillo, who had netted two-goals in the previous JWC at Bhubaneswar, India.

Meanwhile, head coach Juan Gilardi said it does not matter when the goal was scored, so long as they walked away with three points” because playing Australia is always a challenge for his charges. 

Argentina, who had to be satisfied with the second place in the 2023 Junior Pan American Championship after a surprise defeat to Chile, was slightly affected when their equipment, including sticks and shoes, went missing when arriving from Buenos Aires, few days ago. 

“We are happy to get back our equipments after going missing for four days (due to airlines negligence). We were not focused about our sticks, were thinking about our match, and today we played a good match.

“Earlier, when we bought shoes and sticks at a shop here, we felt better because we could train and play the matches and were ready to play world cup,” he said.

Argentina will continue their title defence against hosts Malaysia, tomorrow night (Wednesday) in the second group match. 

“The host team is always difficult, they’re skillful and fast, we will see what happens when they play Chile and from there we will plan the match. We have some matches against Malaysia in the Sultan of Johor Cup, we know they’re a very good team, they won against India in test match, so we need to plan and play seriously,” he added. 

-- BERNAMA