South Korea came a poor fifth when it hosted the last Junior Women World Cup at Seoul, but turned the applecart of the host Argentina this time to win the eluding Cup at Buenos Aires. In a captivating final, it caused the upset of sorts in coming back from a 0-2 deficit at half time to defeat the “Young Lionesses”, Argentina 4-3 in a penalty shootout to take the coveted Cup.

Not many would have expected Korea to bounce back after its unexpected 2-0 defeat to Germany, which ultimately finished sixth, but at the Quilmes National Stadium in Argentina’s capital, Korea proved the pundits wrong. Undaunted, it shrugged off its slumber in time and roared back into the reckoning like a wounded lion.

It tore the might of defending champion Holland and twice runners up Australia before taming the host in the final. Argentina had conceded only a lone goal in previous seven matches but had to bear a Korean brace in the final.

Korea-Australia semifinal was a thriller, perhaps the best of the Championship. Tournament’s top scorer Kim Yun Mi posted the golden goal in the 12th minute of the extra time to hand out the Telstra Hockeyroos their only defeat of the competition. Led by Olympian Skirving and trained by Mark Hager, the Aussies however had the consolation of putting it across Holland, their tormentor in the last edition final, for a third medal, second bronze, in four appearances.

The 13-day carnival will go into the recess of history for the fall from grace of mighty European teams. For the first time, none of them figured in the medals bracket. Holland and Germany, for long the power block’s torch bearers, fell way side done in by the vast strides made by other teams especially in the area of penalty corner. There was no one in the mould of Brita Becker or Jane Sixthsmith. Contrarily, as was China’s Wang Jiun in 1997 World Cup, again a penalty corner exponent, Kim Mi, topped the scorer’s list much to the chagrin of Europeans, who for most part of the last decade had monopolised this vital area of the game.

The competition was also a test case for the veracity of new format that was introduced here to enlarge the field from 12 to 16. Four 4-team pools played the first round after which the top two teams of each poll moved into what they called Championship round while the other teams again formed two 4-team pools for playing for minor placings.

This naturally gave advantage to those teams which showed form early and the others suffered irrevocably. India’s case proved this phenomenon most glaringly. Both India and New Zealand in Pool A lost to Netherlands and defeated USA before played out a goal-less draw between them. Both tied on points, win-loss record and goal difference. However, New Zealand moved to the Championship round by virtue of better goal aggregate of 4 compared to India’s 2. Thereafter India won all five matches with big margin, amassing as many as 21 goals, the tournament’s third highest, and conceding only five as that of Australia and Korea yet it had to finish at ninth. Because, it was not in the main round.

On the other hand, New Zealand lost all the three matches in its new pool ‘E’ yet its last two wins ensured a safe fifth rank. In all, it had only three wins in eight matches, 14 goals for and 11 against.

Similarly, England and Germany had lost six out of eight matches yet the format allowed them to move above India. Though it’s important who plays whom for qualifying a team’s strength, the first three matches seemed to have a bigger say than the other five. There was no time left for the teams to recover as used to be case in traditional format. This lacunae has to be addressed before the same format is adopted for other major tournaments.

Luckily, host Argentina reached the final and the spectator interest was sustained throughout the tournament. What would have happened had not been so? Will the championship be successful for the host unit if their own team would have to play for the minor placings from the day three onwards? This is a moot point.

Not for nothing the host of the next year Sr. World Cup Malaysia asked the FIH to consider a two-way 8-pool format. The time has come for the FIH has to ponder over the matter.

As far India, the same old story of so-near-yet-so-far continues. Hindsight proves they could have fared better with proper reinforcement from seniors. Unfortunately, all five players denied their due were forwards of repute and India lost everything at Buenos Aires because it scored less goals against USA than New Zealand!