Spain is struggling a little bit at the BDO Hockey Champions Trophy, Women here in Quilmes, Argentina, but captain Silvia Muñoz explains that Spain only had four days of preparation.

‘We tried to rest after the World Cup’, she states. ‘Our goal in 2007 is to qualify for the Olympics during the European Championships in August.’

‘Our team is also a little different from most of the others. Teams like Argentina can train a lot together during the club season. This is almost impossible for us.’

Hockey is not the only business of Muñoz. She just graduated as medical doctor. A tough life with big sacrifice, travelling the world with the national team, studying, and when at home having to work weekend shifts as she cannot comply with regular work schedules.

She has been with the Spanish team since 1997 and her biggest concern is that in Spain hockey is not very popular amongst women, so the team finds it very difficult to find new players to replace injured players or players that want to retire.

The Spanish team is of course very anxious to qualify  for Beijing 2008, so their objective today is to end up among the first three positions in the European Cup.

Here in Quilmes, Spain lost two matches and got a point out of the draw against Australia. But Muñoz' summary is still a positive one - ’Every game is another opportunity to get to know each other that is the reason why we lost the first two and tied the third game against Australia.’