M1 Defeat Club Campo In Shootout

Surbiton Men won their ranking match against Club Campo De Madrid 3-2 on a shootout after an entertaining 2-2 draw in normal time at 's-Hertogenbosch on Saturday.

Surbiton had lost 3-1 to Kampong in the FINAL8 after qualifying from the KO16 on home turf in October. Club Campo de Madrid lost 2-1 to Bloemendaal in the FINAL8, having to settle for the ranking match.

Club Campo had been Surbiton's opponents in the bronze medal match in 2022, when Surbiton won 2-1 to finish third, and the rematch three years later was equally as competitive.

The stakes were still important as the result will be taken into account to calculate the coefficient for each country and determine how many teams each country can field in the 2026 Euro Hockey League.

The teams took some time to settle down before Ignacio Abajo Sáenz shot past the left post in the eleventh minute.

Surbiton took the lead one minute later, a clinical penalty corner conversion by Luke Taylor opening the scorer to the team's supporters' delight.

In the 19th minute, Surbiton had a chance to double their lead from their second award after Jake Payton just failed to make contact from a rebound after Madrid goalkeeper, Rafael Revilla Alvarez saved from Gareth Furlong.

Unfortunately, it was Madrid who took advantage of Surbiton's third penalty corner, counter attacking after Taylor's effort was judged to be too high, Abajo passing to Ricardo Sánchez to level in the 23rd minute.

Three minutes into the third quarter, Surbiton were unlucky when a well worked penalty corner routine just failed after Payton's shot went wide of the left post.

Surbiton came close to going behind in the 35th minute when a shot from the right, went under Surbiton goalkeeper James Mazarelo, who somehow avoided touching the ball into his own goal.

Madrid fell behind for the second time in the 38th minute as Max Anderson set up a scoring chance for Barry Middleton to guide the ball past Revilla Alvarez.

With thirteen seconds left in the third quarter, Club Campo lost their right to a video referral, losing a challenge that Conor Williamson's stick on the ground constituted a foul.

Surbiton had earlier used the video referral procedure expertly to change a Club Campo penalty corner to a free hit to Surbiton after it was shown that the ball had touched a Spanish foot before the umpire's whistle blew to nullify the initial award.

Club Campo's second equaliser came from their fifth penalty corner, Mazarelo saving before Lucas Garcia poked the rebound into the goal.

Mazarelo made two excellent saves late in the game to prevent Club Campo from snatching a winner, setting up a thrilling shootout.

Club Campo went first in the shootout, Rafael Villallonga hitting the left post. Struan Walker hit the backboard to put Surbiton 1-0 ahead before Mazarelo swept the ball away from Manuel Rodríguez. Revilla Alvarez returned the favour to deny Nick Park and Abajo duly levelled the score by smacking the ball against the backboard.

Stuart Rushmere restored Surbiton's lead via the backboard, Enrique Zorita keeping Club Campo in contention by scoring off the sideboard.

Rob Farrington sent the ball into the roof of the net after a Revilla Alvarez save and the victory was completed when Mazarelo saved from Romain Delavignette.

After the game, Player of the Match David Goodfield said on EuroHockey TV, "It's not the game we wanted to play in. We felt we gave the match on Thursday [v Kampong] our best shot, but we got a bit unlucky at times."

Goodfield continued, "We're really happy with how we did today and we're trying to build for rest of the second half of the season".

More information about the Men's Euro Hockey League can be found at the EuroHockey Altius website here.