Germany already in the semifinals

22nd August, GANT ENC (Men) in Mönchengladbach: Germany – Spain 3:1 (0:0)

22.08.2011 - In today’s top game Olympic champion Germany commandingly defeated Spain 3:1 (0:0) at the GANT EuroHockey Championships in a repeat of the Beijing Olympic final. This means that German trainer Markus Weise’s team has taken a giant step towards the direct qualification for the 2012 Olympic Games in London by reaching the European Championships semi-finals even before their last group game against Russia. Christopher Wesley, Thilo Stralkowski and Moritz Fürste all scored for Germany.

In front of nearly 5,000 spectators in the Warsteiner HockeyPark, the two European Championship favourites played tentatively for the first fifteen minutes, before creating any goal chances. And those were surprisingly created by the guests from Southern Europe, who let the Germans run at them from deep positions and then tried to launch a counterattack.

Alex Fabregas narrowly missed an Argentinian backhand from a half left position (13) and shortly afterwards the German defence were lucky that the outside right Pau Quemada was whistled back by the umpires from just in front of the goal because of a foul. After twenty minutes the DHB team found their game and particularly thanks to Florian Fuchs (Hamburg) became more of a threat within the Iberian circle. His first goal shot was parried by the Spanish goalkeeper Francisco Cortes with his glove (19), but just thirty seconds later Benjamin Wess passed the ball again to Fuchs, who then hit the right goalpost while turning. A further backhand shot from Fuchs in the 33rd minute also went wide, and the first half ended in a goalless draw.

Germany had to begin the second half with only ten men, as captain Max Müller had been shown the yellow card for a foul shortly before half time. But trainer Markus Weise’s men easily survived this phase and shortly afterwards were able to celebrate the first goal. Moritz Fürste took a free shot from shortly behind the quarter line and hammered it into the circle, where Christopher Wesley deflected the ball unstoppably into the Spanish goal (42).

Now the Germans applied pressure and increased their lead seven minutes later when Thilo Stralkowski (Mülheim) shot a super combination from the right side with Oliver Korn and Matthias Witthaus: 2:0 (49). In the last twenty minutes the DHB team performed nearly perfectly in defense with Max Müller, Martin Häner and keeper Max Weinhold and thwarted the Iberians again and again. A fast attack led to the third goal, scored by Moritz Fürste (UHC), who outplayed two Spaniards on the left side and then thumped his own pass on the rebound into the net. Spain’s consolation goal was scored by Eduard Tubau a minute before the end.

Goals:

1:0 Christopher Wesley (42)

2:0 Thilo Stralkowski (49)

3:0 Moritz Fürste (65)

3:1 Eduard Tubau (69)

Penalty corners:

GER 0 / ESP 1 (-)

Umpires:

Hamish Jamison / Roel van Eert

Original Article: http://www.hockey.de/VVI-web/default.asp?lokal=DHB&innen=/VVI-web/EM/2011/Ergebnisdienst.asp&auswahl=1&spiel=6&version=EN