Great Britain, the defending bronze medalists, is hoping to walk away from the Olympics with a better finish this time around. “Splattering, spluttering, we couldn’t get any really flow (in the competition), and today we just played against an fantastic Dutch team”.
Advertisement
The South Americans pounced on a German team who only squeezed into the semifinals by scoring three times in the closing five minutes to beat New Zealand in the last-eight, 3-2.
After winning in dramatic fashion against New Zealand in the last second, they hit defeat at the hands of Argentina.
The semifinals on Tuesday see the Netherlands play Belgium, and Germany face Argentina.
“This is insane”, said Argentina midfielder Lucas Rey, who could have also spoken for Belgium.
One final note: As field hockey novices, we’re doing our best not to confuse or irritate longtime (or even short-time) fans.
Penalty corner expert Gonzalo Peillat struck a fine hat-trick by converting short corners in the 9th, 12th and 28th minute as the shell-shocked Germans, winners in 2008 and 2012, slumped to a 0-3 deficit by the half-time. Also incredibly, Germany was restricted to two shots in the whole half. That’s when Germany replaced its goalie for an extra forward to try and limit the humiliation.
The United States led their final pool play match against Britain heading into the fourth period before losing 2-1.
Mink Van der Weerden made sure he kept his team close before the second quarter was over when he scored his ninth penalty corner goal. But when the clouds closed back up, Argentina came out to play, and scored twice while the Dutch were women down from yellow cards. “That’s why you play the Olympic Games”. “We couldn’t stop and congratulate ourselves”.
Not until the last minute did Argentina coach Carlos Retegui, responsible for numerous women’s triumphs, finally accept he’d masterminded the men’s greatest success yet, and began hugging his assistants.
Team USA almost had its first goal in the opening minutes of the second quarter, but replay revealed the ball crossed the goal line after hitting Katie Reinprecht’s knee and not her stick on a diving attempt, leaving the scoreboard unchanged.
Germany bombed at the World Cup, but still had a core of seven players from the 2012 champion side.
The end came for Australia’s streak of six straight medals at Olympics that began at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
“Of course, we’d prefer not to be two goals down in the first part of the game”, Parnham said.
Germany, meanwhile, dumped out the United States with a 2-1 victory yesterday.
Advertisement
Australia’s Kathryn Slattery scored to cut the lead to just one but Gemma Flynn and Olivia Merry struck for New Zealand in the third period to put the result beyond doubt as Slattery netted a late consolation.
