England will be hot favourites to qualify outright for the FIH World Cup when the men’s qualifiers start in Egypt on Sunday.
Zak Jones’ side are currently world No.4 while the seven other teams hold rankings between 13th and 25th, suggesting that the battle for three tickets to Belgium and Netherlands this summer will be tightly contested.
Pool A: Egypt, England, Japan, USA
Pool B: Austria, China, Malaysia, Pakistan
Hosts Egypt are fourth-ranked for the tournament and will be aiming to reach the semi-finals over Japan. Malaysia and Pakistan will be favourites to also reach the last four.
Meanwhile in Santiago, France, Ireland, Korea, Wales, Scotland, Canada, Poland and hosts Chile will compete in the men’s event.
The highest world-ranked team among those finishing in fourth place in each event will be the seventh team to qualify.
Scotland enjoyed a win and a draw in a recent Test series against Wales in Cardiff.
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It builds on a successful 2025 where the Scots won the first ever FIH Nations Cup 2 in Oman. Scot Struan Walker says it would be “unbelievable” should the Blue Sticks reach the World Cup for the first time.
Wales men qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2023, while the women’s team have not qualified for the World Cup since the 1983 tournament.
Coach Danny Newcombe said: “If we qualify again it will be less of a surprise [at the tournament] and a focus on ‘How do we do ourselves justice here to really perform?’
“We’ve got a real opportunity to do something special over the next couple of years and that’s what we’re here to do.”
Santiago, Chile (Feb 28 – Mar 8)
Women: Australia, Japan, Ireland, Chile, France, Canada, Malaysia and Switzerland
Hyderabad, India (Mar 8-14)
Women: England, India, Scotland, Korea, Italy, Uruguay, Wales and Austria
