The Kyocera Stadium of soccer club ADO Den Haag in the Netherlands has today been delivered featuring a newly installed GreenFields® TX top-class Field Hockey field as the main stadium for the 2014 Field Hockey World Cup. The nearby, temporary GreenFields Stadium – the second playing location of the tournament – was ready for play earlier. The Rabobank 2014 Field Hockey World Cup will be held in The Hague from 31 May through 15 June.

The main field in the Kyocera stadium will form the heart of the international tournament and can accommodate 15,000 Field Hockey fans. For two weeks this will be one of the largest Field Hockey stadiums in the world. The main stadium will be the venue for all the matches to be played by the Dutch national teams as well as for the finals.

The Rabobank 2014 Field Hockey World Cup is the largest top sporting event in the Netherlands this year, with 24 Field Hockey teams from 15 countries fighting it out for the world title – 432 top-flight players in 12 men´s teams and 12 women´s teams. A total of 76 matches will be played in the main stadium and the adjacent GreenFields stadium.

In order to make both stadiums suitable for top-level Field Hockey, synthetic turf supplier GreenFields produced the field using a TenCate fibre that was specially developed for this sport. Henk Bijsterbosch, director, marketing & sales at GreenFields: ‘Synthetic turf fields are available for virtually all sports, but very specific requirements apply to a Field Hockey field. It must for example be super-fast to play on and at the same time have optimal shock absorption to prevent injuries. Moreover, ball behavior must be identical in all directions. This is a field for champions. When it comes to the colour of the field, we have provided natural dark green for this international sporting event.’

In addition, the top-class Dutch Field Hockey clubs where the 24 World Cup teams are staying and training all have the World Cup GreenFields® TX synthetic turf carpet. Experiences of the field are positive. ‘Nice and smooth, fast, with good ball rebound. The ball rolls evenly in every direction, so that fast play is perfectly possible’, is the opinion of former international Floris Evers. The central midfielder of the Dutch women’s team, Eva de Goede, is also enthusiastic: ‘It´s really great. The surface is soft, so there’s less risk of injuries. Lifting and chopping are also fine’.