Pan American Games champions Argentina showed why they are strong contenders for the Champions Trophy as they demolished Germany 3-1 to post their first victory in two matches in today's only match at the Wagener Stadium in Amstelveen, near Amsterdam.
A fine brace by penalty-corner specialist Jorge Lombi was the highlight of the victory.
The South Americans turned in another fine display of crisp, attacking hockey to break down the resolute German defending that the Indians had found hard to beat yesterday.
Unlike their opening match against Pakistan, when they stepped on the accelerator after being four goals down, they pressed hard from the start, with Lombi and Mario Almada setting a hot pace upfront. That tactic surprised the Germans and the Argentines forged ahead within five minutes from their first penalty corner, which was awarded after Almada was fouled as he tore away into the circle. Lombi directed his drag flick to the left of goalkeeper Christian Schulte for his third goal of the tournament.
The Germans were undeterred by the early reverse and stuck to their traditional style of play, using the width of the ground and making long geometrical designs to try to splinter through the Argentine defence. That they could do so just once in the first half is a different matter. That was in the 11th minute when Benjamin Kopp received the ball well inside the circle. But goalkeeper Juan Vivaldi, who replaced Argentina's regular 'keeper Pablo Moreira for the match, did well to parry Kopp's stiff shot from close.
Thereafter the Argentines maintained their hot pace, but were unable to break the shackles of tight marking as the Germans were content to allow them to run all the way to the circle before cutting off their moves and setting up a counteroffensive.
Germany started the second session with more men in attack in a bid to find an answer to the early goal. They laid siege to the Argentinian goal in the early minutes, but in their enthusiasm left just two men back in defence. The Argentines seized the opportunity and broke away from a counterattack. A long ball put the speedy Almada, who ran in from the left, in possession and he made no mistake with his reverse hit, the ball going past Schulte off a defender's stick.
The Germans had a chance to pull one back soon after when they were awarded a penalty stroke, but Alexander Sahmel had the mortification of seeing his push crash into the crossbar.
A couple of more chances came the Germans' way, but Vivaldi proved equal to the task.
In the 58th minute, Lombi scored his second goal of the match and fourth of the tournament from a penalty corner to take the game away from the young German side.
Though Niklaus Meinert managed to pull one back in the 65th minute, scoring on the second attempt after Vivaldi had parried the ball away, Germany were unable to come up with anything serious to stave off their second successive defeat.
Match summary:
Argentina 3 (Jorge Lombi 2, Mario Almada) beat Germany 1 (Niklaus Meinert).
