Taman Daya Hoki Stadium, Johor Bahru, Malaysia                8 June 2009

In the second day of matches of the Jr. World Cup Field Hockey Tournament, the USA U-21 Men’s Team faced Spain in Pool C on pitch Johor 2.  A good write up of this game is on USA Field Hockey, link at   http://www.usfieldhockey.com/events/international/2009mjwc/index.php

This article describes some of the comments after the game from USA coaches, with the US attempting secure their goal initially in the game.  It appeared to work for a while, with gritty determination from the US palayers.  But there was a slow buildup of the score favoring Spain with some really nice field goals.  Some were amazingly scrappy goals, one of which was where a Spanish player literally bounced the ball thourgh the sticks of the US defenders - then to a player at the top of the D, who placed the goal.   Beautiful skills and execution which is hard to defend against. The USA played well against a world-class team.

Late in the second half, there were a large number of Spanish short corners with the US fiercely defending their goal.  One series involved 4 short corners in a row, with Spain ending up not scoring in the end.

Wednesday, the US plays Malaysia in the pitch 1, the main pitch with 3,000 seats (filing to over 5,000 spectataors).  In the regional major paper, the "Straits Times" of Singapore and Malaysia, there is good coverage with pictures.  There was a running commentary today between the Malaysian coach and Nick Conway the USA coach on today's match.  It is at 7:30PM because of the heat.