Warm Greetings to all my ardent supporters and readers. Been busy and with some time now, and also many people asking me on the chances and how the qualification system work, so decided to pen my views on the Malaysian Men’s Hockey Team journey to 2026 World Cup and providing the processes and facts.
The FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup 2026 will
consist of 16 teams. We are lucky as not 12 teams like Olympics and thanks
to FIH for expansion from 12 to 16 since 2018 World Cup but this format was
used as trial for 2002 KL World Cup. If 12 teams World Cup, we do not have a
chance to play, but even with 16, the obstacles and the challengers are quite
tough but all depends on the grouping.
The 16 teams are divided by the following quotas
and who have qualified:
2 Host – Belgium & Netherlands
2 Pro League – Australia & Spain
5 Continental – India Germany Argentina New
Zealand and left last Continental event – African Cup 2025 next month and South
Africa will steal that slot.
– more important is the FIH WC Qualifiers where the balance 7 slots.
Let’s zoom in more for the 2026 World Cup
Qualifiers as this event will be the decider for Malaysian Men hockey team.
There will be 2 (two) FIH Hockey World Cup Qualification Tournaments, consisting of eight (8) teams each (16 teams in total), held in early 2026.
The 16 Teams, in my view are the followings
after doing some research and taking certain assumptions with world ranking
calculations for African Cup 2025 next month and 3 best matches between Pakistan
and Bangladesh.
The allocation of the teams for both
Tournaments will be based on the FIH World Rankings on 19 October 2025, the day
after the last Continental Qualifier. My Seedings on the 16 Teams based on
rankings are as below:
1England 2. France 3. Ireland 4. Malaysia 5.
Pakistan 6. Korea 7. Wales 8. Egypt 9. Japan 10. Scotland 11. Canada 12.
Austria 13. China 14. Poland 15. Chile 16. US
How they will distribute the above 16 teams
into 2 venues of 8 Teams
Even pending 2 more events – African Cup 2025
& best of 3 Matches Pak vs Bangladesh, did some calculations and the impact
on the seeding is very minimal and the assumption detail below is close to 95%
accurate:
– it will be based on a snake system and the
teams ranking order of 16 teams in the FIH World Cup Qualification Tournaments will
be as follow:
Tournament A 1 Eng, 4 Msia, 5 Pakistan, 8 Egypt,
9 Japan, 12 Austria, 13 China, 16 US
Tournament B 2 France, 3 Ireland, 6 Korea, 7 Wales,
10 Scotland, 11 Canada, 14 Poland, 15 Chile
Then we break it to the pools as follows:
Tournament A will be in Kuala Lumpur as
Malaysia got the bid to host one of the WC Qualifiers and Tournament B will be
announced soon by FIH:
*IN KL Tournament A grouping will be:*
Grp A – Eng Egypt Jpn US
Grp B – Msia Pak Austria China
*Tournament B (Host yet TBA) grouping will be:*
Grp A – France Wales Scotland Chile
Grp B – Ireland Korea Canada Poland
The tournament format will be as
follows:
• Two (2) pools of four (4) teams
each;
• Semi-Final will be played by the
top two (2) teams from each pool;
• Team not qualified to the
semi-finals will play classification matches from 5-8
Note 1: If the 2 hosts are allocated
by the snake system to participate in the same tournament, then
the lower ranked of the two hosts will be swapped into the other tournament with the equivalent ranked team allocated to the other tournament.
*How the 7 Teams will be decided that will qualify to 2026 WC with 2 venues:*
• Winners of the Semi-Finals are
qualified to the FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup 2026
• Winners of the Bronze medal
matches are qualified to the FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup 2026
• The highest World Ranked team (at
midnight on the final day of the qualification tournaments) that finishes in
4th place in each Event will also qualify to the FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup
2026
Will write our chances as we get nearer
to the event – next assignment for Malaysian Men is 6 warm up matches and Sultan
Azlan Shah in Nov 2025 and whereas our Junior Team just came back from China
(went twice) and will be playing in Sultan of Johor Cup early next month and
thereafter Junior World Cup Nov/Dec in India.
As for Women we qualified to play in World Cup Qualifier but my view its more of exposure and slim chance. Even our Junior World Women team will play in the Junior World Cup – thanks to FIH for the expansion of number of teams from 16 to 24 which I disagree as the competitive edge between top 15 and others are in a big gap and it will be a high goal scoring tournament and some teams will face humiliation and worried the government may reduce their support to the results obtained.
So okay guys, thanks again for being my loyal reader – till my next article – all the best and stay healthy always!
Signing Off…
*Maninderjit Singh (Mike) – 2 Olympics and 2 World Cups with twice Asian All Stars**Former Malaysian Hockey International & Secretary General of MHC/MHF, Member of FIH Think Tank Committee*
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