On the opening match of the Olympic pre-qualification tournament the Netherlands played against Croatia. The Croatian team was expected to be quite strong because of the Canadian born players playing for Medvescak Zagreb. According to the world ranking though the dutch national team is considered to be the second strongest one in the group.
The Dalmatians have many missing players at last, only three rows are available for Danijel Kolombo. The Netherlands started the game accordingly, they pushed from the very beginning. Their first goal arrived at the half of the first period, when Marcel Kars scored. He did not take back later as he scored a hat-trick in the match. After two periods the standing was 6-0. In the final part of the match they had an 8-0 lead, but in the last minutes the Croatian players saved the honour of the team as they scored twice. The game ended with 8-2, the „Oranje” proved that they can be the most serious challenger for the Hungarian national team.
Barry Smith, coach: The Netherlands
I am satisfied with our team’s performance tonight. We played with good tempo right from the beginnig. We got into our stride very quickly, which is very important in a tournament like this. It is crucial to eliminate the flaws in our game as qucikly as possible! I liked our attitude and that we kept on going! The boys are very happy in the locker room right now. The celebartion can go on for another half hour, then we should start focusing on our next game!
Danijel Kolombo, coach: Croatia
What can I say! We are missing at least eight or nine of our important players, so I couldn’t expect much more from these young guys tonight! We scored two goals at the end, but the game was practically over by then. So what did we learn from this game? Very hard to tell! I hope we can play a little bit better in our next two games!