Men’s EuroHockey Indoor Club Cup (Sant Cugat, Spain)
Harvestehuder THC and AH&BC Amsterdam will battle it out for the 2026 men’s EuroHockey Indoor Club Cup on Sunday after two whirlwind semi-finals in front of a sold out Sant Cugat arena.
It was loud and passionate throughout with all the emotions flowing as home favourites Junior FC dared to dream of a debut final while reigning champions Royal Léopold came unstuck against the five-time champions HTHC.
After a scoreless first quarter, Philippe Simar and Sam Poncelet traded corner goals with Vincent Scholz to make it 2-2 in the 15th minute.
From there, HTHC turned up the heat with Fülöp Losonci scoring two neat poacher’s goals in around the pads to eke out the first significant lead, one which they would hold to the end.
Jonas von Gersum’s lovely spin and finish off a pitch length move made it 5-2; Dylan Englebert replied with a trick-penalty corner move but Gracjan Jarzyński’s sharp hands in the circle made it 6-3 going into the final quarter.
Simar slammed in another but Alec von Schwerin and then Niklas Reuter’s shot from the baseline completed an 8-4 success.
Fülöp Losonci celebrates. Picture: Frank Uijlenbroek/World Sport Pics
The second semi-final was even more fraught, the home crowd making for an intimidating atmosphere, a wall of blue and white sound punctuated by a healthy Amsterdam group who made the trip to Spain.
And they got off to a flying start with Mustapha Cassiem scoring almost direct from the centre-pass, 1-0 on 10 seconds. Sam Steins-Bisschop doubled up as the Dutch side showed few nerves but slowly Junior started to feed on the atmosphere.
Oriol Bozal got one back from a corner and his brother Aleix would nail their next two set pieces in Q2, edging them 3-2 in front at half-time.
Amsterdam roared back in Q3, captain Boris Burkhardt to the rescue to score two in quick succession and it 4-3. Again, the pendulum swung back the other way with Pablo Espino scoring a brilliant diving flick and then Aleix Bozal’s stroke made it 5-4 with four minutes left.
The visitors piled forward, winning a series of corners but it was only with 30 seconds left Burkhardt found the 5-5 equaliser from the left corner.
It led to a shoot-out where Steins-Bisschop and Olivier Paalman set the stage for Cassiem to deliver the knock-out blow and start wild celebrations.
Pool C
Chris Griffiths inspired Old Georgians to their first ever win in the top tier of the men’s indoor Club Cup as his four first-time strikes saw them defeat HC Olten 7-2.
Three of them came in the first nine minutes, the third a peach from the left of the circle, to set them on their way. Alan Forsyth added two more and James Carson slotted a sixth before Olten got on the board late in the game.
HK Zelina put in a remarkable second half performance to defeat TJ Plzeň Litice 7-5 and secure Croatia’s spot in the top division with a game to spare.
Plzeň had constructed a 2-0 half-time lead and progressed that to 3-1 but Zelina played all of the third quarter without a goalkeeper and used the extra player perfectly.
They got back to 4-4 by the end of Q3 and then goals from Michal Posavec, Bohdan Kovalenko and Mario Ilinović saw them race to their second win and 10 points.
For TJ Plzeň Litice, it means they need a draw or better against Old Georgians on Sunday while the English club need to win to stay up.
