Top five highest goalscoring teams at Men's Junior Hockey World Cup

These nations scored a lot of goals at the tournament.

The FIH Men’s Junior Hockey World Cup 2021 was a huge success. The city of Bhubaneswar played host to the tournament and India had a lot of high expectations. Participating as the defending champions, Graham Reid’s men managed to finish fourth and took away a lot of learnings from the experience. Argentina managed to defeat Germany in the final and emerged as the winners in an entertaining encounter, while India lost to France in the third-place playoff.

The Kalinga Stadium saw several high-scoring contests in the tournament. However, the winners of the competition were not among the highest scorers. Several other teams at the Junior Hockey World Cup ranked high in terms of scoring the most number of goals. The U-21 setup is slightly imbalanced in terms of the overall strength of teams, hence Pool fixtures saw high-scoring matches.

A total of 172 field goals were scored in the tournament, which is a high number. Here is a look at the tournament’s top scoring nations:

5. India - 29 goals

The hosts were very attacking in their strategy in Pool fixtures. Overall, the Indian Colts scored 29 goals, the fifth-most in the tournament. They had 175 circle entries through the course of the tournament, which was the highest for any outfit.

The top three scorers from India were Sanjay (eight goals), Uttam Singh (five goals) and Hundal Araijeet Singh (five goals). Out of 29 goals, 13 came from penalty corners, one from a penalty stroke and the rest were field goals. Sanjay was also tied as the third-highest individual scorer at the tournament.

4. France - 30 goals

Third-place finishers France scored 30 goals at the recently concluded Junior Hockey World Cup. This is the fourth-highest number of goals scored in the tournament as a team. France's captain Timothy Clement hit a total of 14 goals.

He is the second-highest individual goalscorer in the tournament. Clement scored 13 of those goals from penalty corner situations and one was a field goal. Other top scorers from France include Sellier Corentin (five goals) and Igau Antonin (three goals). 

3. Pakistan - 34 goals

Pakistan scored 34 goals at the Junior Hockey World Cup, the third-highest tally among the teams. The Asian nation scored 18 goals against the United States. It was their best performance in a tournament where they finished in 11th place.

It was also the highest number of goals a team scored in a match in the competition. The top scorers for Pakistan were Rizwan Ali (eight goals), Rana Abdul (seven goals) and Abuzar (four goals). Pakistan finished the tournament on a good note with a 5-0 win over Poland. 

2. Spain - 36 goals

Spain scored the second-highest number of goals (36) in the tournament. They finished seventh in the overall positions with a 4-1 win over Malaysia.

Their two biggest wins included a 17-0 win over the USA and a 9-0 win over South Korea in Pool C fixtures. Pau Cunill (eight goals) was their top scorer, supported by Eduard De Ignacio-Simo and Pepe Cunill with six and five goals respectively. Spain were not the highest-scoring team in Pool C however, which also included the high-flying Netherlands. 

1. Netherlands - 45 goals

The Netherlands came forth to be the highest-scoring nation at the Junior Hockey World Cup with 45 goals. The only team to score more than 40 goals, the Netherlands decimated teams like South Korea (12-5) and the USA (14-0) in Pool fixtures. They lost to Argentina in the quarterfinal and finished fifth eventually, by beating Belgium 6-4 in the playoff.

The Dutch outfit included Miles Bukkens who finished as top scorer of the tournament with 18 goals. Brent van Bijnen (six goals) and Luke Dommershuijzen (six goals) were the other leaders on the scoring charts for the Europeans. 

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