India face Germany in hockey semis

PARIS (France): India face a tough task of making it to the final as they are pitted against in-form Germany in the semi-finals to be played at the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium.

It was an astonishing day of men’s quarter-final action on Sunday with India, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany all reaching the Olympic Games hockey semi-finals. Ten-player India showed huge determination in a remarkable win against Great Britain before Spain produced a sensational performance to eliminate Belgium, the reigning Olympic champions. The Netherlands battled their way past Australia, while Germany got the better of Argentina.

The result completed the line-up for the semi-finals, with Germany set to meet eight times Olympic gold medalists India and the Netherlands facing Spain in the final four today (Tuesday). The Netherlands became the third men’s team to reach the semi-finals, defeating Australia 2-0 to exact revenge on the side that defeated them at the same stage of the tournament at Tokyo 2020.

It was another fiercely-contested match at Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, with the large contingent of Dutch fans getting the win that they so desperately wanted thanks to goals from Duco Telgenkamp and Thijs van Dam. Telgenkamp’s superb penalty corner deflection came five minutes into the second half, with Van Dam scoring a stunning solo goal to effectively kill off the Kookaburras -- who rallied hard in the latter stages -- with eight minutes remaining.

“I feel amazing”, said Netherlands goal-scorer Telgenkamp after the match. “It was just a fighting game. We fought until the end to get a good result. It was just a fantastic performance from the team.”