KO8: Club Campo de Madrid – Royal Leopold Club

Match report

Cesar Curiel sent Club de Campo de Madrid into raptures as he kept his nerve in a sudden death shoot-out to send them through to the FINAL8, seeing off Royal Léopold 4-3 after normal time ended 3-3.
It concluded a fabulous match in which Léo made the early impact but Campo finished strong.
Dylan Englebert opened the scoring with a remarkable upright shot on his backhand after an overhead ball into the circle was never fully cleared in the third minute.
Either side of that, Campo had a series of good chances in Q1 with Rafael Vilallonga, Thijs van Pelt and Alvaro Iglesias all having strong efforts. Léo, meanwhile, had the ball in the goal from a Gaspard Baumgarten shot but the video review showed it hit a team mate’s body en route to goal.
The third quarter belonged to Campo who penned Léo in their own 23-metre zone for most of the 15 minutes with precious few avenues out of defence.
The equalising goal within seconds of the restart of the big break with Alvaro Iglesias touching in a cross from Nicolas Poncelet.
But they could not make further use of a set of three penalty corners, one of which Tanguy Zimmer somehow took off the line after ping-pong in the circle.
Léopold settled in the final quarter but could not find the next from a couple of corners while Campo continued to threaten but to no avail.
During that phase, Iglesias also showed an incredible piece of sportsmanship when Léo were faced with a yellow-card for Dimitri Cuvelier after a video review when his stick hit Enrique Gonzalez’s neck.
The Campo captain said the yellow was not warranted and was accidental with the umpires agreeing not to impose the sanction.
It meant a shoot-out in which Léo took the early advantage but the first series of five ended level at 3-3. The next round was blank while round seven saw Louis De Backer denied by Rafa Revila before Curiel scored for a second time for the winning moment.