England win over Germany marred by controversy

NOTTINGHAM: England continued their successful run in the women’s Champions Trophy tournament on Tuesday, beating Germany 2-1 in a match overshadowed by controversy.

It was the first time that England had ever beaten the Germans in the Champions Trophy and follows a 2-1 win over Argentina on Saturday and a 3-0 reverse to the Netherlands on Sunday.

In the other games on Tuesday, Argentina swamped New Zealand 4-0 and Netherlands defeated China 2-1.

Germany soaked up England’s early pressure and had a penalty corner goal disallowed 20 minutes into the first half when the video referral confirmed that the ball injector had both feet illegally inside the pitch.

Germany coach Michael Behrmann barely contained his rage at England’s decision to challenge, which he felt went against the spirit of the game, and the decison of the video umpires to disallow the penalty corner goal by Tina Bachmann.

“Of course I am very, very angry and frustrated and it is one of the worst days of my life in hockey,” Behrmann said.

“If you take video referrals in that way I think it is goodnight for hockey,” Behrmann added.

England coach Danny Kerry admitted his team had discussed referring Germany’s penalty corners to the video umpire before the match.

“It was brought up by one of the players in a meeting and we discussed it for some period of time,” Kerry said.

Helen Richardson converted two of England’s four penalty corners, each an identical drive by Kate Walsh to the right post for a deflection in by Richardson.

Natascha Keller converted Germany’s fifth penalty corner.

China captain Fu Baorong scored a deflection for China at the right post after five minutes and Netherlands penalty corner striker Maartje Paumen converted two of their seven penalty corner chances in the second half to ensrue the victory.

It should have been more comfortable, though, as Netherlands had 17 shots on goal without scoring.

Dutch coach Herman Kruis was unconcerned, however,that so many chances went begging.

“I am happy to create so many chances but in the end we made two beautiful penalty corner goals,” Kruis said.

China coach Kim Sang Ryul conceded Netherlands outplayed China.

“Holland was tactically better than China today,” Kim said.

New Zealand goalkeeper Bianca Russell saved three quality penalty corner shots by Noel Barrionuevo to keep Argentina scoreless in the first half.

The Kiwis lost their structure in the second half, allowing Argentina to run freely into the circle to score field goals by Delfina Merino, Luciana Aymar and Daniela Sruoga and, finally, a penalty corner goal by Barrionueva.

“We played very well in the first half but in the second half we lost structure and lost shape and conceded too many soft goals,” said New Zealand coach Mark Hager.

“Today was probably our worst performance in the second half and we played like schoolkids and allowed Argentina to run riot and do whatever they liked.”

Argentina coach Carlos Retegui insisted the scoreline was secondary to the performance.

“We are not interested in the result as we are concentrating on the way we play the structures we are experimenting with at this tournament,” Retegui said.

The tournament continues on Thursday when Germany meet New Zealand, China play England and Argentina face the Netherlands.