FIH Men's Hockey World Cup 2023

About FIH Men's Hockey World Cup 2023

The FIH Men's Hockey World Cup will kick off on 13 January in Odisha. For the first in the history of hockey World Cup, a nation has got the hosting rights back-to-back. India, which hosted the event in 2018, will host it again, only this time around, there would be two venues, instead of just one.

Hockey World Cup 2023 venues

While in 2018 only Kalinga Stadium of Bhubaneshwar was the host, this time around, Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium in Rourkela will also host the matches.

While Bhubneshwar will host 24 games including all the quarterfinals, semi-finals and final, 20 matches will be held in Rourkela which will include the group matches and the 9-12th and 13-16th place classification matches.

Hockey World Cup 2023 Teams

16 teams will compete in 44 matches for the shining World Cup trophy.

Hockey World Cup 2023 Groups

The 16 teams have been divided into four groups which would have four teams each. Here are the groups

Group A comprises Australia,  Argentina, France, South Africa
Group B comprises Belgium, Germany, South Korea, Japan
Group C comprises Netherlands, New Zealand, Malaysia, Chile
Group D comprises India, England, Spain, Wales

Hockey World Cup 2023 Format

The group topper would move to the quarterfinal directly, while the teams finishing at number two and three would qualify for crossovers.

What are crossovers?

Crossovers are a chance for even the team which finishes in third place in the group to qualify for the quarterfinals. The 8 teams which would qualify for the crossovers, would play against each other. For example, the second-placed team in group A would play against the third-placed team in group B. Now the winner of this crossover would meet the group topper of Group D, which qualified for the last eight, by finishing at the top of its group.