As the EuroHockey Indoor Champioship II - Espinho 2016 is almost here, the organization of the event decided to interview persons of interest of each of the national teams that will compete, between 15^th and 17^th January, for the desired promotion. This time, Portugal’s coach, Mário Almeida, kindly answered a few questions concerning the preparation and expectations of his team.

 
How is being the preparation of your team for the Euro Hockey Espinho 2016?
 
Within the current constraints, such as this approach to the New Year’s Eve, and the limitations of having many players competing abroad, I could say that our preparation is developing the way we were expecting.
 
 
What are the expectations for the competition?
 
It is a very difficult competition. This is an intermediate level competition that includes some top national teams and a lot of average teams. This makes the competition to be very balanced with little differences between the teams. We can basically expect everything. We can finish in the first places or end the competition on the last positions. So, for a division of such nature, I never have expectations, not positive or negative. I want to be sure that my players train well, and do the best I can to prepare the team the best I can. As the competition progresses, we will try to adapt to the current status, always taking into account the difficulties that we find.


For you, what are the strongest teams in the Portugal’s group?
 
It is too complicated to define who are the strongest teams, especially during an Olympic year where the main world top teams end up not using their strongest players in Indoor Championships. For example, Belgium, a world top 10 team in Field Hockey, is one special case, since we do not know how they will present themselves in this event, with all strength or not, and that affects this analysis.
 
Denmark has a tradition of being in the first division, on the other hand, Ukraine, for example, is always at this intermediate level. But, in general, they are all strong. No one can predict what will happen. We can all expect that, theoretically, Belgium to be the most complicated opponent and then, surprisingly, the most complicated team ends up being Ukraine. So, I'll focus in preparing my team the best I can, and define my strategy one game at a time.