Exclusive: Belgium focused on their ‘process’ to win Junior World Cup title as part of their meteoric rise in world hockey | Hockey News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The meteoric rise of Belgian men’s hockey to the top, which now includes both the World Cup (2018) and Olympic gold (2020/21), remains the story that’s the envy of every hockey nation. In a blueprint that’s just over a decade old, Belgium — nicknamed the ‘Red Lions’ — have achieved everything any international team plans to achieve.
If they fell a step short of the Olympic gold at Rio 2016, the hockey brains mentoring Belgium figured out the little tweaks needed, and it worked. At the Tokyo Olympics, despite the pandemic forcing players into lockdowns for months, the Red Lions turned their Rio silver into a gold in Tokyo. In between, they won the senior World Cup in India to tick another high-profile box.
Belgium’s junior team had the chance to win a World Cup before their senior counterparts. In 2016, at Lucknow, the Junior World Cup title just eluded the Belgians, losing in the final to hosts India who won 2-1 to clinch their second title after 2001.
The Belgium under-21 team at that time was coached by Jeroen Baart, who is now into his seventh year with the junior squad; and he will once again do all the brainstorming in India when the 2016 runners-up camp in Bhubaneswar for the upcoming November 24 to December 5 edition of the Junior Men’s World Cup.
It’s going to be a completely different experience this time in front of Covid-forced empty stands at the Kalinga Stadium, with strict Covid protocols in place and so on.
Jeroen Baart spoke to TimesofIndia.com, looking ahead to the upcoming edition of the tournament as part of an exclusive interview.

(Photo Source/Photographer: Coach Jeroen Baart/Pauline Schumacker)
Excerpts…
You have been to India before, but it’s been half a decade since then. Would you like to introduce yourself to the hockey fans in India?
I have been involved with the under-21s since, I think, the beginning of 2014. In 2015, the moment Shane (McLeod) became the head coach of the Red Lions, I moved to be the head coach of the under-21s. So it’s been almost seven years that I’ve been in this role.
Tell us something about the under-21 programme that you run, before we get down to discussing the Junior World Cup…
We have an under-18 programme and an under-16 programme as well. So (players) younger than 18 normally don’t play with us for under-21s. At the moment, I have some guys in my programme for the last four years, and it’s always fantastic to have a really big spell of time with these boys because they are super eager to learn and to make steps to go to the next level in their hockey career.
If you look at the Red Lions now, guys like Victor Wegnez, Arthur de Sloover, Arthur van Doren and Antoine Kina, even Emmanuel Stockbroekx, all those guys have been in my programme for the last couple of years. We are super proud that we are getting successful in our objectives because our first objective is, of course, to deliver players to the senior team.
Belgium have scaled every peak since 2011, winning the European Championship, World Cup, the Olympics gold in the space of 10 years or so. One title you would like to get under your belt is the Junior World Cup, which is still not there in your cabinet…
Hundred percent. We are always looking at the process, of course, like why are we here; and the most important for us in the under-21 programme is, like I already said, to deliver players that are good enough and ready to play for the Red Lions. I think we are getting very successful there.

(Photo Source/Photographer: Coach Jeroen Baart/Pauline Schumacker)
Looking back at five years ago and now, I think we have played really good tournaments…We played the (2016 Junior World Cup) final against India with so much crowd (in Lucknow). We had a really good chance of winning the title there but unfortunately missed out. So for sure this time we will work out a very good team and we’re ready to compete, to follow the process, but of course we are also very keen on trying to win the cup.
It’s going to be a very different tournament in terms of participation and environment. With Australia, England, New Zealand having pulled out, do you think it becomes a lesser contest or is that just how it looks on paper?
I can understand on paper it would look like that. I think at the end, (it is big) for young guys like these, who don’t have the experience to play too often against different kinds of cultures. For us, it’s a very big difference between playing against Holland or playing against India, Malaysia or Korea. They have just a completely different way of playing. Because you don’t have that much information as well about the other teams, it’s always a difficult task.
At the end, to win the tournament, it all becomes a part of the details that have to come together…Australia, New Zealand and England are not there; but it’s still a very tough competition to get into.
The playing conditions will be a lot different than 2016, with empty stands, Covid protocols, etc…
Hundred percent. It’s a bit of a shame for the boys for sure that they will not get the experience to play in front of a full stadium. One of the fantastic things you have when you go to India to play a tournament like this is to play for a crowd that is very enthusiastic and full of passion. On the other hand, like you said, the (COVID) circumstances, not only in India but the rest of the world as well, make it very tough because we have to deal with quarantine, COVID testing, etc.
We have to make sure that everything, hygiene-wise, is up to the standards. Even in Europe…we still fight the virus every day and we have to be careful every day in Belgium as well. So it’s different from five years ago in Lucknow.
But still I think, and I really believe, that the experience for the boys to go to India to play a tournament at this level and inside the stadium like the facilities that we have there (at the Kalinga Stadium), it’s going to be a fantastic experience for the boys.

(Photo Source/Photographer: Coach Jeroen Baart/Pauline Schumacker)
Is there anything specific that the Belgium team has planned in terms of hygiene protocol that needs to be followed?
COVID-wise, we just follow the same things that we have been doing in Belgium and in Europe for the last year and a half or two years. So that means disinfecting your hands a lot, wearing a mouthguard as much as possible, and avoiding contact outside our group. I think it’s the same thing as we have for the last year and a half in Belgium. We have to be just really mindful to control what we can control.
On the other hand, we also have the factor of going to the other side of the world where there are different spices in foods, different bacteria, there’re different temperatures during the day. So we are always looking to be ready to protect our environment and that means the environment inside our stomach as well.
So we are protecting our stomach with some pills that we take. But I don’t think that is different than we would do four or five years ago. I think probably the Indian people do the same when they travel to Belgium and Europe.

Coming to the field and to your team, there’s a lot to look forward to because Belgium has been the team to watch over the last few years. So what do you have in store for us this time?
I think we have a very quality team again with a very good change-up of ages. We have guys who are pushing 21 and we also have a young guy in the team who has just turned 18. That makes it very interesting. A very solid team that has worked very hard over the last couple of months to become not just better hockey players but also a better hockey team.
I think we have outstanding goalkeepers and lots of experience up front. Our defence is a bit young but has lots of quality. I’m really looking forward to playing the typical Belgian style of hockey with our defensive block and then we try to dominate on the ball and be very dangerous on the counter.
And would you like to put a few names upfront, who the Indian fans should look out for this time and also maybe in the years to come in the senior team?
Maybe I can mention three names. We have Thibeau Stockbroekx, who is a young player and already played for the Red Lions leading up to the (Tokyo) Olympics, and he also played the last Pro League game against Germany. He is a very strong, fast forward, who is very good defensively and also very good on the ball inside the circle.
Maybe I can name two other names, and Dylan Englebert, who is our captain, an attacker upfront, maybe doesn’t always score a lot of goals, but he is a guy who is very much the threat between midline and the offensive circle. He is an actual leader who leads his group towards a very good performance every day.

Same thing for our goalkeeper Boris Feldheim…He’s been playing already as a number one goalkeeper for a top team in our first division (league) in Belgium. He was also nominated for the award of best upcoming talent during the last season in Belgium.
Surely you have no plans to go around and see Bhubaneswar because of the Covid situation…
I think the boys and my staff are super eager to get to know India and understand the different culture and environment that we will get into. But indeed it only becomes more difficult with COVID and the circumstances that we are living in at the moment. So at the moment we are not planning a lot. But we will see how the situation looks when we are there and see if we can still find some things that we can do for the whole team to get to know Bhubaneswar a bit and get to know the life of India.