The Green Army has achieved their ticket with a splendid championship in Pisa, with an outstanding O'Flanagan
With the victory of the Irish team in the European Qualifier of the FIH Hockey Women's World Cup 2022, played this weekend in the Italian city of Pisa, the shamrock team will be able to defend at the next World Cup the silver medal won in London 2018, where he managed to advance to a historic final.
In the final of the Qualifier, they beat the Welsh team, the 26th team in the world rankings, by a 2-1 that exemplifies the equality experienced on the pitch despite the theoretical difference between the two teams. Anna O’Flanagan, the top scorer in the history of her national team, sealed the Irish victory with goals in each match and two in the final.
Ireland advanced to the final after beating France, the theoretically weakest team in the quarter-finals 4-1, and Belarus 3-2 in the semi-finals, in a match that was just about to complicate for Sean Dancer's team when Batura made it 2-2 at the start of the last quarter.
The other finalist, Wales, was on the verge of consolidating a major surprise after beating Italy, the hosts and also favorite to be in the final, in the quarter-finals, and Scotland by shoot-outs in the semi-finals. Both are, in theory, far superior to a team that has seen their male teammates take home one of the two tickets to the World Cup in India for the first time in history.
It will be Ireland’s fifth participation in a women’s hockey World Cup (after 1986, 1994, 2006 and 2018), a competition where it had never performed better than 11th place until the silver medal won in the last edition.
