Mustaphaa Cassiem of South Africa endured a frustrating evening at the FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup Croatia 2025 on Saturday. Picture: World Sport Pics for FIH
South Africa’s men’s indoor hockey team was denied a place in the final of the FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup Croatia 2025 on Saturday after a 6-1 defeat against a clinical German team.
They will face Belgium in Sunday’s bronze-medal match at the Zatika Sports Centre in Porec.
Austria will face Germany in the final.
The BlitzStoks had already made history by becoming the first South African men’s team to reach a World Cup semi-final.
They were determined to ensure that it didn’t end there.
The emotion was clear in a rousing rendition of the national anthem.
The Germans scored first, off a deflection, as they caught the BlitzStoks napping.
SA got the chance to hit back off a penalty corner but Mustaphaa Cassiem’s powerful flick crashed against the bar.
The BlitzStoks’ star attacker, younger brother of skipper Dayaan Cassiem, would have a frustrating evening.
Dalpiarro Langford scored SA’s only goal of the match, showing great skill to round a defender and fire home at the near post.
Both teams were relying on the counter-attack at that stage.
It was 1-1 at the end of the first stanza.
The second quarter was more of the same: end-to-end.
There was a great double save from Cullen de Jager in the SA goal to deny the Germans.
However, he was powerless to prevent them from scoring from a penalty corner moments later.
Skipper Dayaan Cassiem struck the post after a pass from Mustaphaa, with SA playing more on the front foot.
But they were struggling to beat Germany’s suffocating press.
The BlitzStoks were handed a potential lifeline when Dayaan Cassiem was taken out by the goalkeeper.
Unfortunately, Mustaphaa sent his penalty stroke straight at keeper Joshua Onyekwue Nnaji.
The BlitzStoks were 3-1 down at half-time.
“Very tough game for us tonight. We didn’t have a great start as the Germans got off to a really good start with a very classy, clinical finish,” SA head coach Justin Rosenberg admitted afterwards.
“We pulled it back to go 1-all. One or two defensive errors up front gave them the opportunity to get a second and then another one in the third.
“We had an opportunity at the end of the second chukka, with a stroke to take it to 3-2 and get our tails up going into chukka three after half-time. We missed that opportunity.
“We obviously went to try and be brave and we took our keeper off in the last chukka to try and go for the win, and they got two breakaways to seal the game.”
The BlitzStoks were noticeably not as clinical as they were against Iran in the quarter-finals. Their control often let them down in the D.
Rosenberg felt the result wasn’t a true reflection of the game.
“We had several opportunities at 1-all, also at 2-1, to level it up or to take the lead. But it wasn’t to be,” he said.
Onyekwue Nnaji also had a blinder in goal for Germany. He would later be named player of the match.
The BlitzStoks had reached the semi-finals with a 6-0 demolition of Iran.
They had started the tournament with a win over hosts Croatia.
The only blemish in the pool stage was an 8-6 defeat to world champions Austria, who beat Belgium 4-2 in the other semi-final.
The South Africans will be disappointed not to be featuring in the showpiece match of the tournament that is the pinnacle of indoor hockey. But they are determined to lift themselves one more time.
“We go again tomorrow, which gives us the opportunity to get a bronze medal ‒ the dirty gold. That’s our aim and the boys are up for the challenge,” Rosenberg concluded.
The SA women, who had reached the semis at the 2023 World Cup on home soil, were not able to replicate that performance in Croatia.
However, they did well to bounce back from a disappointing pool stage.
They edged Austria 3-2 in the play-off for ninth place on Saturday.
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