María Jesús Maldonado: “I am proud of Las Diablas”

Chilean hockey experienced what it had never experienced before: in one week it achieved several objectives. They beat Australia twice (8th in the world), qualified for the 2026 World Cup, were crowned with Pre-World Cup gold and were very close to the Top 10 in the international ranking. This Tuesday, it was known that he is 11th.

María Jesús Maldonado is one of the leaders of this Diablas team that has been achieving goals consecutively for some time.

“I am very proud of what the team did, I am very excited, very happy, I think we finally showed where Las Diablas has to be, where Chilean hockey has to be, so I am very happy with what we did and what we built until we became champions and qualified for the World Cup”the lead began to explain.

It is the second time they will go to the international event. The first was in 2022. Many of those players also achieved this consecutive classification. Experience, without a doubt, is essential to go through these situations but Jesu knows that it must be a perfect combination: “Obviously we have a balance, we also like what the younger girls give us. They come a little with some irreverence that brings a lot to the team. We give them a little bit of knowledge, of what we already know is playing against rivals like Australia (from the final) or like those we are going to face in the World Cup.”.

Regarding how they see themselves facing the international competition that will take place in Belgium and the Netherlands during the month of August, the Country player was convincing: “I think we have to go show that we also belong there, not just go to participate. Hopefully we do better than the previous edition (where they placed 13th together with Korea)”hill.