Rodrigo Garza

Rodrigo Garza Barbero (born December 3, 1979 in Madrid) is a field hockey defender/midfielder from Spain, who represented his native country at three consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 2000.

After the Athens Games (2004), where the Spain finished in fourth position, Garza moved to The Netherlands, where he joined HC Den Bosch in the Dutch Premier League, called "Hoofdklasse". He moved on to national champions HC Bloemendaal in the spring of 2007, and became champion of premier dutch league in the 2008 season. Garza has been developing his skills since he was a child, developing a well known understanding of the game, due to the philosophy that governs his primary school, Colegio Valdeluz in Madrid, where Hockey excels and reigns among other sports. He has been associated to an extensive discipline and passion for the game of Hockey, probably soon developed because he started to play with the national Spanish squad as a teenager. His kind of game could be defined as tactical minded, oriented to organize the attacks begginnig from a well stablished Defense involving constant movement of the strikers to open the counter defenses. He has endorsed Malik and Grays sticks and currently tasks the duty of penalty corner stopper.

Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, he started to play Hockey at his hometown school Colegio Valdeluz and then promoted through respectives categories until reaching premier Spanish league "División de Honor" playing with San Pablo Valdeluz (later on Ssang Yong Valdeluz). He then moved to play for Club de Campo Villa de Madrid before arriving to Holland.

Garza has been many times junior and senior champion and runner up in both field and indoor Hockey, participating in several Euro champioships: Padova, Barcelona, Leipzig and Manchester. He has participated in two Hockey World Cups in Kuala Lumpur and Mönchengladbach. He achieved a major success by winning the first Champions Trophy for Spain in 2004 at the National Hockey Stadium in Lahore, Pakistan and ending runner up in 2008 edition celebrated in Rotterdam, Holland. He gained lot of respect by opposite teams earning Silver medal at Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics losing tragically against Germany the final game by only one goal.

References

* [http://www.coe.es/ Spanish Olympic Committee]