Brilliant contest to watch to kickstart Friday’s Field Hockey Olympics activities at Stade Yves-Du-Manoir Stadium (Pitch 1) where China put up a great fight following a poor 1st half performance but Germany have the upper hand when it comes to the overall win by 4-2.
Commiserations to China who weren’t bad at times that puts the Germans under pressure, especially when they built a solid defensive structure on top of a good counter-attack as seen with their late charge after half-time. However, they just let themselves down when the executions aren’t there sometimes while picking up some ill-discipline that went the Germans way towards the end. All China can hope now is for the Netherlands to beat Japan early tomorrow, and they can begin their Quarter-Final preparations soon enough v the host nation France – who is currently in last right now with a 0-4 loss in Group A.
And how good was Germany with their 4-2 win, especially when their attacking performance was tip-top as always that gave the Chinese a really hard time to catch them off-guard. Not only they were really effective through open play as seen with back-to-back 2nd quarter strikes, but their winning penalties also helped the Germans added some extra points too – one off a penalty corner and another was via a penalty stroke. They better need to watch themselves out defensively though as China warned them at times via coach Alyson Annan like the Netherlands (Alyson’s adopted country) did other day with the 2-1 loss ahead of Germany’s next & final group stage match v Belgium tomorrow.
