Published>Tue, Mar 09 10 10:48 PM
New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) The Netherlands went down to a determined Asian Champions Korea 1-2 in an engrossing battle, but survived by the skin of their teeth to make it to the semi-finals where they were joined by defending champions Germany who withstood a courageous comeback from New Zealand to beat them 5-2. and top the Pool. .
Germany finished with 11 points followed by the Netherlands and Korea tied on 10 points, but the Dutch just about managed to keep their nose in front on a better goal difference of plus 10 compared to Korea's plus 8.
In the last match of the preliminaries, Argentina beat Canada 4-2 and will now meet hosts India
for the seventh-eight place Friday.
It was a matter of one goal for Korea as a 3-1 margin would have seen them through to the knock out round. And the way the Asian team swarmed the Dutch goal with breathtaking speed, another goal looked just round the corner. The Netherlands, with some good defending and lots of luck, kept the gritty Koreans at bay.
The Netherlands opened the scoring through Ronald Brouwer (1st minute) before Korea went ahead with strikes from Nam Hyun Woo (31st) and captain Jong Ho Seo (45th). Korea would now take on Spain for a fifth-sixth place play-off.
In the semi-finals, Germany will take on European champions England while the Netherlands will play Pool B toppers Australia Thursday.
It made for a nerve-wracking finish with four teams in the fray for the semi-final berths on the final day of the league match. And the two matches made for an enthralling evening.
In the first match of the day, Germany went 2-0 up in the first half, courtsey Christoph Menke's (15th minute) acrobatic slide and Florian Fuchs' (22nd) penalty corner conversion. They pumped in one more through Philip Witte's 47th minute strike before New Zealand gave them a fright with two goals in the space of three minutes. Shea McAleese (51st) converted a short corner and Nicholas Wilson (54th) brought New Zealand back in the game.
But Germany converted their last two penalty corners through Moritz Furste (63rd) and Matthias Witthaus (64th) to put it beyond New Zealand.
Germany, who were held to a draw by Korea and the Netherlands, finished their league engagement with 11 points in five matches, with three wins. They qualified for the semi-finals for a record 11th time. The only time they missed the semi-final spot was in 1971.
After New Zealand goalkeeper Kyle Pontifex twice denied Germany, Menke and Fuchs combined for a brilliant execution.
Promising striker Fuchs did the spadework from the left and pussed the ball into the open, Menke running parallel to him dived full stretch to spoon the ball high into the New Zealand goal.
Fuchs scored his fourth goal in the tournament when he sent in a rebound that came off Pontifex's stick off a penalty corner.
Germany went 3-0 up with another deflection, this time by Witte, taking advantage of a Jan Philipp Rabente's cross from the top of the circle.
New Zealand throbbed back to life with some excellent moves, taking advantage of the complacent German team.
McAleese deflected a drag flick from Andrew Hayward to open New Zealand's scoring. Wilson then showed fine ball control to breach the German defence, outpacing two defenders and dribbled goalkeeper Pontifex to slam home.
With scoreline reading to 3-2, Germans pulled up their socks as an adverse result would have made them dependent on the results of the other two pool matches for their semi-final berth.
The Germans tightened the defence before scoring two more goals.
'After we were ahead 3-0 we became casual and again dropped down by 20 percent which allowed them to come back. But we recovered well to win the match by a decent margin,' said Germany's captain Maximilian Muller.
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