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Men's Hockey World Cup 2018: 5 teams with the best attack

The Indians are feared for their pace, especially in the counter-attacks
The Indians are feared for their pace, especially in the counter-attacks

When summing up his hockey philosophy in an earlier interview with Sportskeeda, Indian coach Harendra Singh stressed on the fact that modern hockey is all about propelling the ball into the opponent's half in an effort to score rapidly, rather than holding back cautiously for the most part, and waiting for the opposition to err.

"European teams (like Holland) have learned a lesson from Australia. Holland lost 1-6 to Australia (in the 2014 World Cup final). The coaches realized that if you set up camp in your territory and keep waiting for chances to create counter-attacks, the ploy will not work. Over the last 2 or 3 years, all the teams in the world are playing hockey with a full press."

With the next edition of the World Cup due to start in a week, it will be interesting to see if the more fancied teams decide to go all out in the initial stages or prefer to sit back and gauge the weaknesses of their adversaries before launching an offensive move.

Watching the top teams in the world sink their lesser-fancied counterparts, with a barrage of goals, in tournaments like the continental championships may be spectacular to watch, but it is the ability to split open the best defences in the world in crunch situations which separates the men from the boys.

So, which are the teams, at Bhubaneswar, who will be expected to consistently launch attacks with their dribbles, dodges, shimmies and dummies?

Let's take a close look at five World Cup teams who have the ability to breach the opposition circle, consistently and effectively.


#5 Argentina

The Olympic champions may well have the best drag flicker in the world, but the PCs need to be earned for Peillat to drive them home.

The wily Lucas Vila and the incredibly talented duo of Agustin Mazzilli and Joquin Memini have dazzled with their spectacular forays in opposition territory, but Augustin Bugallo's spectacular finish against Australia was the talking point of the HWL final at Bhubaneswar last year.

Stringing together a series of super quick one-touch passes is a ploy the South Americans use when the long balls fail to produce results, and even defenders like Pedro Ibarra are seen rattling rivals in the attacking circle before falling back quickly to guard their own.

Matias Paredes loves to display his dribbling skills and get his name on the scoresheet in big matches, as he did at Rio against the Dutch, and against the Australians in the 2014 Champions Trophy at Bhubaneswar.

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