HAMBURG, Germany, 20 June 2004 — Pakistan showed Argentina the way to score field goals in a convincing 6-3 defeat on the second day of the Hamburg Masters men’s field hockey tournament here yesterday.
Argentina, who beat world champions Germany on Friday, soaked up the pressure in the first 10 minutes and scored from only its second possession in its attacking half when Lucas Cammareri pounced on a rebound off the pads of Salman Akbar Khokhar to chip into goal from a meter out.
However Muhammad Nadeem leveled with the first of three goals five minutes later, followed by Ahmad Waseem and Rehan Butt to give Pakistan a 3-1 advantage at the break.
Argentina’s penalty corner ace, Jorge Lombi, struck with his second chance, firing low into the right side of goal to have Argentina within striking distance of Pakistan, 11 minutes into the second half.
The wheels fell off Argentina’s revival when Max Caldas stopped a shot with his feet on the goal line and Sohail Abbas pushed the resulting penalty stroke along the carpet into the right of goal for Pakistan to lead 4-2.
Argentina’s defense tired in the last quarter, allowing Nadeem enough room to get three strikes on goal and score from two to take a 6-2 lead.
Carlos Retegui converted Argentina’s fourth penalty corner from a variation at the top of the circle where Matias Vila laid off to Retegui to flick low across Salman for the goal, seven minutes from the final hooter.
Roelant Oltmans, Pakistan’s coach, was pleased Pakistan’s strikers are finally starting to create scoring chances.
“Offensively we played much better than yesterday. Tariq Aziz and Shakeel Abbasi created a lot of movement around the attacking baseline,” Oltmans said.
“We started to play a more dynamic game today in the forward line and that brought us the success for today,” Oltmans added.
“In the first half we played very well defensively. When we play against an attacking team it puts pressure on our defense and also allows opportunities for the counterattack which we used today to good effect,” Oltmans added.
Argentina’s coach Jorge Ruiz conceded his defense did not play as well as they did in the 3-2 win over Germany on Friday.
“We did not concentrate in defense and had problems closely marking the Pakistan players, unlike the way we closely marked Germany yesterday. That took a lot of effort from the players and they were tired in the last quarter of the match,” Ruiz said.
