The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Germany seals its place in the final

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Friday, Dec 07, 2007
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Germany seals its place in the final

S. Thyagarajan

Kuala Lumpur: On a dank, rainy Thursday, enough evidence of contests intensifying and tensions heightening surfaced at the Champions Trophy. The schedule was delayed by an hour. However, the unkind and unpredictable weather did nothing to diminish the tempo of the matches; each one had a significance of its own.

At the end of the day, Germany confirmed its final berth finishing on top with an assailable tally of 16 points. The 3-2 win over Malaysia was Germany’s fifth in six matches, with one remaining against the Olympic champion, Australia, on Saturday.

Whatever the spirit that the Malaysians showed — they even reduced the margin by two goals in pouring rain — was obliterated by the speed, system and skill perfected by the Germans, for whom Florian Keller was outstanding.

The Dutch quest to retain the trophy received huge setback when the Aussies held them for a 3-3, the equaliser from Luke Doerner emerging six minutes before the whistle. This added an element of climax to the tight contest where the teams fought giving no quarter.

If the Dutch looked a shade better, it was largely on account of the individual and combined thrusts they could make against the well-knit Australian defence. But Jeroen Hertzbergar managed to weave in from an adroit forward pass from Rob Reckers for the lead.

From then, it was fluctuating fortunes. Russel Ford’s equaliser came against the run of play, and the other equaliser by Edward Ockenden was awarded after a video confirmation when the Netherlands was up 2-1, following Taeke Takema’s penalty corner.

Matthijs Brouwer hoisted the lead shortly after resumption. But, much to the chagrin of the Dutch, Rob Recker’s goal did not get the reference it deserved to the video umpire. Then came the equaliser by Luke Doerner.

While Australia enlarged its tally to 10 points from six matches, the Dutch are one point behind.

Pakistan rallies

Pakistan turned in a noticeable display, recovering from a 3-1 deficit to draw with Korea, putting the latter in a must-win position against Britain on Saturday for a place in the final. The Koreans were unusually ponderous in their approach work, even after leading 3-1.

Earlier, Shakeel Abbasi produced a stunner of a backhander for the first half equaliser. But Korea worked up two-goal lead after that. Only in the last 10 minutes did the Pakistanis show the gumption to fight. Waqas Sherif made the best of a defensive error and in the dying minutes came a penalty corner goal by Kashif Ali.

Korea has 11 points with a goal difference of plus five placing it in a good position but a lot depends how things pan out on Saturday, after a rest day on Friday.

The results:

Australia 3 (Russel Ford, Edward Ockenden, Luke Doerner) drew with The Netherlands 3 (Jeroen Hertzberger, Taeke Takema, Matthijs Brouwer); Korea 3 (Seo Jong Ho, You Kyo Sik, Jang Jong Hyun) drew with Pakistan 3 (Shakeel Abbasi, Waqas Sherif, Kashif Ali); Spain 5 (Ramon Alegre 2, Santi Friexa, Eduard Arbos, Victor Sojo) bt Great Britain 0; Germany 3 (Florian Keller 2, Mattihas Witthaus) bt Malaysia 2 (Selvaraju, Abu Ismail).

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