Santiago "Santi" Freixa i Escudé (born 13 February 1983) is a Spanish

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

coach and former player who played for the Spain national team as a forward. In November 2015, Freixa received the Athletes in Excellence Award from The Foundation for Global Sports Development, in recognition of his community service efforts and work with youth.

Club career

Freixa played in Spain for his local club Atètic Terrassa until 2006, when he joined

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

club

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

Amstelveen Amstelveen () is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands with a population of 92.353 as of 2022. It is a suburban part of the Amsterdam metropolitan area. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the historical villages o ...

. In 2015 he announced his retirement from professional field hockey. He still played a few matches for the first team of Amsterdam the next season because of an injury crisis. He was the head coach of the first women's team of

SV Kampong SV, Sv, sv, etc. may refer to: Places and language * El Salvador, ISO 3166-1 country code SV * South Vietnam, an extinct state * Svalbard, Norway, FIPS country code SV * Swedish language, ISO 639-1 language code sv * Silicon Valley, a region in n ...

from 2016 until 2019. In April 2019, he agreed to be the head coach of the first men's team of his former club Amsterdam from the 2019–20 season onwards.

International career

He earned his first cup in 2000 against The Netherlands. In 2004, Freixa was named '' Talent of the Year'' by the

International Hockey Federation The Fédération Internationale de Hockey (English: International Hockey Federation), commonly known by the acronym and initialism, acronym FIH, is the international governing body of field hockey and indoor field hockey. Its headquarters are i ...

and won the Champions Trophy with Spain in

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

. At the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

, he competed for the

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exam ...

in the men's tournament, captaining the side. He played for the Spanish national team until 2014.

References

External links

* 1983 births Living people Field hockey players from Catalonia Spanish male field hockey players Male field hockey forwards Spanish field hockey coaches Olympic field hockey players of Spain Sportspeople from Terrassa Field hockey players at the 2004 Summer Olympics 2006 Men's Hockey World Cup players Field hockey players at the 2008 Summer Olympics Field hockey players at the 2012 Summer Olympics 2014 Men's Hockey World Cup players Olympic silver medalists for Spain Olympic medalists in field hockey Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Amsterdamsche Hockey & Bandy Club players Expatriate field hockey players Spanish expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands Atlètic Terrassa players Men's Hoofdklasse Hockey players División de Honor de Hockey Hierba players {{Spain-fieldhockey-bio-stub