The last step to Beijing will be challenging: the Belarusians will be a tough opponent, we still have to improve this! – Sports

BRATISLAVA – Slovak hockey representatives also won in their second match at the final tournament of the Olympic qualification in Bratislava. On Friday, they clearly defeated Poland 5: 1 and lead the D-group with a full number of 6 points. In the final duel, they will encounter Belarus on Sunday (5.30 pm), while they will have enough points to advance to the 2022 Olympic Games, ie to bring the duel into overtime.

The Slovaks had a clear advantage at the Ondrej Nepel Ice Stadium from the beginning and in the 9th minute they took the lead after the premiere national team intervention of Adam Ružička. They finally broke the opponent’s resistance in the second period, in which Libor Hudáček, Miloš Roman, who replaced the injured Miloš Kelemen, and Peter Cehlárik added more goals. Only Krystian Dziubinski prevailed for Poland. In the third part, he highlighted the dominance of the home team with his second goal in the Ružička match.

votes after the match / RTVS, TK /:

Craig Ramsay, SR coach: “In the first period we tried to make the match interesting, again the players sent us unnecessary backhand passports, passes over their own feet. We gave the Poles a chance to return to the match. The coaching staff was not very happy about it and let everyone know that this is not our style of hockey, we play for victory, for some purpose, we have a certain system, style of play, we want to dictate the game, but we allowed the opponent to play his game. We’ve taken control of the match again, thanks to the captain and his assistants, who did their job, encouraged everyone and helped them get back on track. If you don’t score goals easily, you make it harder right away.We were finally able to score a few goals today.I saw a great performance from all the formations, especially the fourth attack led by Gríger played extremely well. solid whenever he skated on ice. Against Belarus, we must stick to our system, as soon as we seize the puck, we must fire towards the attack. We have to focus on our performance, then we are able to make it difficult for any opponent. “

Peter Čerešňák, defender of the Slovak Republic, in the match 0 + 2: “The victory was born hard, we had a chance in the first period, but we did not manage to change them. We did not succeed until the second and third period. We have three points and that is the main thing. In the goal at 2: 0 I moved the puck to Libor Hudáček in the middle zone, he has already dealt with it. It will be difficult against Belarus. We will definitely sit down and study their game. It will be a fight for everything, we have to prepare 100% for it. We found out that we can score goals so I hope it will fall against Belarus as well. “

Andrej Podkonický, assistant coach of the Slovak Republic: “We knew it would be a tough match, that the Poles would defend the middle zone well and go full. We wanted to score a goal faster, but the Poles played selflessly and the goalkeeper caught them well. In the second period we broke, we were more aggressive in it. and they went more into the goal. We still have to improve our power-ups, shoot more, the boys are playing too much in them. It will definitely be a difficult match against Belarus, but if we play our game, we will be successful. “

Adam Ružička, author of two goals of the Slovak Republic: “I also thought about the hat-trick, but the main effort was to win the match. It was my first match against Austria after a long time, I went to the second duel with more confidence. We knew that we would manage the match and we succeeded. In We wanted to shoot more with power and simplify the game, which was probably the biggest change compared to the first match. We will watch the video and prepare for the Belarusians so that we can beat them. “

Libor Hudáček, scorer of the second goal of the Slovak Republic: “During my goal I got a nice cross pass from Čerešňák, Marko Daňo entered me among the opponent’s defenders, I took it to the middle, tried to shoot to the top of the goal and it went in there. I played two preparatory matches after a four-month break, the first the match was the hardest, the second one was better, we had better legs, we also had more confidence, we got a few goals there and we made it to the winning end. because the opponent allowed us more and we could play what we wanted. “

Only the winner of the Bratislava tournament will qualify for Beijing. The advancing team will meet Sweden, Finland and other successful qualifiers in the basic C-group of the Olympic Games 2022.

• The author: © List
• Source: TASR