Hindustan Times: Hockey Junior World Cup: Germany, Belgium and Australia book semifinal berths

Six-times world champions Germany stormed into the semi-finals of the Junior Men’s Hockey World Cup in style, brushing aside England 4-2 at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium in Lucknow on Thursday.

They would now play against Belgium, who eked out a 4-1 win over Argentina in the shoot-out after both the teams were locked 1-1 at the end of regulation time in the first quarterfinal of the day. Australia became the third team who made it to the last four after knocking out Netherlands 2-1 in the third quarterfinal encounter.

Argentina remained the most unlucky team of the day as they had to face a defeat despite leading by a solitary goal till 69th minute. Maico Casella (44th minute) scored for Argentina in the regulation time, but Victor Wegnez drew level (69th) for Belgium just a minute from the final hooter to take the match into shoot-out.

In the shoot-out, Nicolas Poncelet, Arthur de Sloover, Victor Wegnez and Henri Raes converted their chances while Tomas Domene was the lone lucky player for Argentina.

As expected, defending champions Germany raced to a two goal lead in the first half through Jan Schiffer (22nd) and Lukas Windfeder (31st) before Florian Scholten (52nd) and Tim Herzbruch (70th) found the net after change of ends for the defending champions.

England’s goals came from the sticks of Edward Horler (65th, 66th minutes) in a span of two minutes, but it didn’t make any difference to their better rivals.

Just before India could begin their battle against Spain in the last quarterfinals of the day, Kiran Arunasalam opened the account for Australia with a fine field goal in the 18th minute before Jip Janssen (47th) restored parity for Netherlands from a penalty corner. Jack Welch then scored the winner for Australia in the 58th minute to take his side to the semi-finals.