How 'Bazball' helped Zach Wallace score one of the greatest hockey goals of all time

Hockey 16 Aug 23

It takes years to produce a second of dead-eyed sporting brilliance.

It takes many shanks to produce a golden summer and in the case of Great Britain hockey star Zach Wallace, more than a few epic fails and eye-rolls.

In April, Wallace scored what has been heralded as one of the greatest goals in the sport’s history.

The 23-year-old’s upright reverse ‘tomahawk’ strike fulminated past the New Zealand goalkeeper to set Great Britain on the way to a 5-2 victory in the FIH Pro League.

The goal won awards and was widely shared on social media - without the context of what it took to produce such a magical moment on the international stage.

Here, Wallace shares the unconventional training methods that produced the goal - so unconventional that they nearly injured him and ruled him out of Great Britain’s crucial Olympic qualifier.

He also goes deeper into the ‘Bazball’ mentality that he hopes will propel Team GB towards Paris 2024 and a first Olympic men’s hockey gold since 1988.

Zach Wallace training: 'I do some crazy stuff'

Wallace burst onto the international scene in 2018 and was nominated for the World Young Player of the Year award a year later.

Mixing things up in training has been crucial for him to escape tight marking and keep the opposition guessing.

“In the position I play, it’s all about how you can create chances in different ways and get into new goalscoring positions,” he says.

“When you have that thought process, you’re not trying to just do the simple things every day. You’re testing what works and what doesn’t work.

“We’re given the licence to go out and experiment and our coach (Paul Revington) gives us the freedom to go out and do it.”

Clearly, there was more than a helping of instinct that went with the golden goal, but it would never have happened had Wallace not planned and visualised it.

“When the ball came to me, it sat up pretty perfectly so I gave it a swing,” said Wallace.

“It is the type of goal that I’ve thought about a bit. I try all sorts of stupid things in training and I see it as a process of trial and error.”

Recently Wallace gave Revington heart palpitations when his renegade approach to attacking training nearly backfired in the worst possible way.

“I do some crazy stuff,” he said. “A couple of months ago, I missed the ball and hit myself in the foot instead.

“I was hobbling around in a couple of our Pro League games just trying to get through it! I can be a bit of a coach’s nightmare in that respect but I guess it’s good when it comes off.”

Borrowing Bazball: 'We're taking on this relentless mentality'

Wallace’s strike was one of several worldies scored by Great Britain as they secured second in the 2022-23 Pro League, the team’s highest-ever finish on the top-level circuit.

Scottish attacker Lee Morton, recently reintegrated into the GB set-up, scored a virtuoso goal against India after a mesmeric solo dribble and finish from a tight angle.

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These viral moments are emblematic of a new mentality under head coach Revington, who hails from South Africa and joined GB after a successful spell in Malaysia.

In the media and indeed internally, it has been rebadged as 'Bazball' to borrow from the no-fear mentality espoused by England men's cricket coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes.

“The style of play we had before wasn’t true to the personalities we had,” admitted Wallace. “We’re taking on this relentless mentality and going after teams whoever they are.

“We’ve got a hungry, talented group of young guys used to winning tournaments at junior level. There’s an expectation that we’re going to go toe-to-toe with the top sides in the world.

“These goals speak volumes about the team’s mentality and togetherness. Everyone’s backing each other.

“It must not be much fun for other teams watching us, knowing that you can stop one of us, but you can’t stop everyone."

Workout intensity: 'We're crawling off the pitch'

For Wallace, it all comes back to training how you want to play.

“We don’t have a training session where you go off thinking, ‘that was pretty chilled,’” he revealed.

“We’re crawling off the pitch. It’s brutal and that’s what we wanted.

“We wanted someone who would push us. We felt we were knocking on the door but we wanted that last little bit to push us over the line.”

GB now morph into the Home Nations for the EuroHockey Championships in Monchengladbach, Germany with the winner securing a quota place for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Paris 2024 Olympics: 'I'm buzzing for it'

In the same way as McCullum and Stokes came under scrutiny in this summer's Ashes, Wallace is well aware that his team will be judged on how they perform in crunch moments such as these.

“I’m not concerned about that because that’s completely how I judge us as well," he insisted

"It’s all well and good doing it in the Pro League but unless you do it at the Olympics, it doesn’t matter and it’s all for nothing. 

"It only counts when the stakes are highest and that’s something that really excites me. I’m buzzing going into the next Olympics and I think we’ve got characters who play their best stuff when the chips are down.”

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