The EHL Men KO16 lands on Friday in Barcelona with 16 top class club sides from 11 different countries ready to do battle, all hoping to land one of the four FINAL8 places on offer.
It features the national champions from England, France, Austria, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic along with two sides each from the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium along with host club Real Club de Polo.
Among the squads named, over 30 stars from the recent EuroHockey Championships are set to be among the line-up with Polo trio Marc Reyné, Marc Recasens and Luis Calzado hoping to delight the home crowd.
The event will feature 10 of the Dutch side who won men’s Euros including the tournament’s young talent and top scorer Duco Telgenkamp.
He is one of six SV Kampong players from that Oranje side; they face four of their Dutch team-mates from Bloemendaal on Saturday, October 7 who also have Belgian star Arthur Van Doren and Spain’s Marc Miralles in their panel.
Otherwise, there are over 20 further Euro stars from England, Germany, Austria, Wales and France in the mix for their clubs as the new season begins with a bang.
They will all compete in a straight knock-out format which gets under way on Friday, October 6 and runs until Sunday, October 8.
The match schedule sees each club face an initial KO16 fixture. The winners of each of those games will move on to the KO8 where a ticket to next Easter’s FINAL8 will be up for grabs.
The losers, meanwhile, from the KO16 phase will face an important ranking match to determine the allocation of European tickets for 2023/24.
For teams who win two successive games, they will earn one of the precious FINAL8 tickets on offer where they will join already qualified Pinoké, Rot-Weiss Köln, Gantoise and Club de Campo de Madrid.
Each game from the KO16 and KO8 rounds – played on pitch one – will be broadcast live from the venue. Viewers worldwide can watch each game on www.eurohockeytv.org via an €9.99 event pass; this is with the exception of Belgium where matches will be shown on Eleven Sports’ online platform and in Latin America where ESPN is the broadcaster.
EHL Men KO16 (October 6-8, 2023; Real Club de Polo, Barcelona)
Ticket prices (including service fee; additional delivery costs may vary)
€21 (17+ years)
€11 (<17 years)
No ticket required for the second stadium (pitch 2).
EHL Men KO16 fixture schedule (all times CET – pitch 1 unless stated)
Friday, October 6
M1: Waterloo Ducks HC v Banbridge HC, 11.15
M2: Old Georgians HC v Mannheimer HC, 13.30
M3: Racing Club de France v Holcombe HC, 15.45
M4: CAM 92 v Real Club de Polo, 18.00
Saturday, October 7
M5: Post SV v HC Rotweiss Wettingen, 09.45
M6: Ranking match – Loser M1 v Loser M2, 11.30 (pitch 2)
M7: Royal Leopold v Harvestehuder THC, 12.00
M8: Western Wildcats HC vs TJ Plzeň-Litice, 14.15
M9: Ranking match – Loser M3 v Loser M4, 16.00 (pitch 2)
M10: HC Bloemendaal vs SV Kampong, 16.30
Sunday, October 8
M11: KO8: Winner M1 v Winner M2, 09.45
M12: Ranking match – Loser M7 v Loser M5, 11.30 (pitch 2)
M13: KO8: Winner M3 v Winner M4, 12.00
M14: KO8: Winner M7 v Winner M5, 14.15
M15: Ranking match – Loser M10 v Loser M8, 16.00 (pitch 2)
M16: KO8: Winner M10 v Winner M8, 16.30