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Paris Olympics: India suffer 3-2 defeat to Germany in semifinals
India will now play Spain for a bronze medal on Thursday
German players celebrate as dejected Indian players look on. — AFP
Germany claimed a 3-2 win over India in the men's hockey semifinal at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday after Marco Miltkau scored the winner by lifting the ball over veteran goalkeeper PR Sreejesh with six minutes left on the clock.
Germany last reached the final at London 2012 when they claimed gold and will now play the Netherlands, who have not conceded a goal in their two knockout stage matches.
India, who are back in the bronze medal match where the face Spain after beating Germany in Tokyo for third place, must wait another four years to snap a gold medal drought since 1980.
Skipper Harmanpreet Singh opened the scoring on a penalty corner in the seventh minute with a high floating ball going over a diving goalkeeper Jean-Paul Danneberg following several set piece tries in a row.
Two penalties by Jarmanpreet Singh in the second quarter cost India the lead as defender Gonzalo Peillat scored with a rifling strike on a penalty corner in the 18th minute and Christopher Ruehr added on a penalty stroke in the 27th.
The third quarter opened with a beautiful diving save by Danneberg to deny the India skipper an equaliser off of a penalty corner.
"It is a big privilege for me to play here and to show the world where my qualities are," Danneberg said.
"Now all the focus is for the gold medal match and hopefully we will keep our defence power forward and we can win against the Netherlands. We know from the past that the Dutch have extremely big problems to score against us.
"The Dutch players need a very good day to score four goals against us. I think we are the mountains and they will have big problems to climb us."
Sukhjeet Singh scored a few minutes later in the 36th as another Harmanpreet drag-flick bounced off his stick and over the outstretched Danneberg but Miltkau then secured the win.
"We played very good hockey today," Harmanpreet said. "We played so many chances, short goal, some set pieces, but today the finishing was again not there.
"We are not going to take Spain easy and we try to give everything we have and try to win that bronze medal."
Earlier, top-ranked Netherlands reached the final with a much more comfortable 4-0 win over Spain than in the pool stage when they had to fight back from two goals down.
Cheers erupted from the sea of orange blanketing the crowd just before the final whistle as Dutch fans showed up in force.
They will play in their first Olympic final since London 2012 as they bid to end a 24-year gold medal drought.
Spain, who lost 5-3 to the Dutch in their Pool A match, will get their first chance to compete for a medal since 2008 in the bronze medal match.
Netherlands defender Jip Janssen opened the scoring with a converted penalty stroke in the 12th minute after goalkeeper Luis Calzado kicked the legs out from under forward Tjep Hoedemakers while going for the ball.
Captain Thierry Brinkman got the second in the 20th after collecting a rebound off Spain defender Ignacio Rodriguez's stick and blasting the ball into the net for his first goal of the Paris Games.
"I was waiting for that moment for the whole tournament because I had a bit of bad luck in the nine yards. All the balls were not coming to my stick, so I was waiting for this moment," Brinkman said.
"You have to keep the patience always as an international striker. The most important ball is the next ball, the next chance you get."
The scoring continued in the opening minutes of the third quarter as forward Thijs van Dam sank his shot with plenty of space in the circle after two Spain defenders collided trying to collect a deep pass by the Netherlands skipper.
The crowd again erupted in the 50th minute when forward Duco Telgenkamp scored the Dutch team's fourth.
"We didn't do a lot of things wrong, but the small details killed us," Spain skipper Marc Miralles said.
"They did not have that many chances I think, but they were very efficient and that's definitely what we need to improve for the next game."
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