Since the high of Rio Olympics triumph, Argentina has been struggling to reclaim that form. The first warning came when it lost to France in the pool stage here, and the struggles continued on Wednesday as England eliminated it with a 3-2 win and reach its fourth semifinal.
England played an attacking game to disrupt Argentina’s defensive structure while keeping its own defences tight enough. Barry Middleton, at 34 playing his fourth World Cup, was the heart of the English team.
He got on to the scoresheet after Liam Ansell did all the hard work, running around the entire circle to draw away the defence and put Middleton through, who shot on the move to neutralise Gonzalo Peillat’s goal.
That forced Argentina to step up its own pace but only ended up playing into England’s plans. England kept pushing ahead from either side but was thwarted by Juan Vivaldi more than once.
Knowing its biggest weapon was Peillat, Argentina kept seeking penalty corners, earning six of them in the process. But George Pinner was up to the task and although the Argentine managed to convert two, it wasn’t enough.
Clinical
Later, title favourite Australia cruised into the last four with a clinical 3-0 win against France. It wasn’t the scoreline one expected but Australia was content converting three penalty corners without exerting too much.
To its credit, France did show some spark with the occasional foray, earned a couple of penalty corners and defended with desperation but against the World No. 1, it needed a lot more.
The results (quarterfinals):
England 3 (Barry Middleton, Will Calnan, Harry Martin) bt Argentina 2 (Gonzalo Peillat 2); Australia 3 (Jeremy Hayward, Blake Govers, Aran Zalewski) bt France 0 .
