Times of India: Spain ‘superstar’ Cortes foils Ireland

JOHANNESBURG: Veteran Spain goalkeeper Quico Cortes was hailed as a “superstar” Wednesday after a thrilling 2-1 win over Ireland in the Men’s Hockey World League tournament quarter-finals.
Victory at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg booked a last-four showdown with Germany on Friday, the same day Australia face Belgium in the other half of the draw.

Australia brushed aside Egypt 4-0, Germany were equally dominant in a 4-1 win over France and a couple of early goals saw Belgium triumph 2-0 against New Zealand.
The semi-finals feature three of the top five ranked men’s hockey nations in the world with ninth-place Spain the outsiders.
Ireland could have been three goals ahead by half-time but for the brilliance of Cortes, who made a string of superb saves.

Having luckily weathered the storm, Spain went ahead, Ireland levelled and the winners regained the lead, all within seven third-quarter minutes.
“Cortes is a superstar who helps us a lot,” admitted Spain skipper Miguel Delas. “It was a really tough match and I am proud to have led my country into the semi-finals.”
South Africa-born Ireland coach Craig Fulton said Cortes was the difference between teams separated by only one place in the rankings.

“It is tough accepting defeat as we should have scored goals in the first half, but Cortes pulled off many fantastic saves,” he said.
Ricardo Sanchez and Alvaro Iglesias scored for Spain and Alan Sothern for Ireland in the most exciting match of the four-fixture schedule.
Belgium against New Zealand promised to be competitive with three ranking places dividing them, but a suicidal start by the Black Sticks triggered their downfall.

A crazy lofted pass across his D from a Kiwi was intercepted by Sebastien Dockier, who had time and space to fire past Richard Joyce for a third-minute lead.
Joyce, starting for the first time in Johannesburg, was beaten again two minutes later as a shot from six-goal leading tournament scorer Tom Boon flew between his legs.
New Zealand-born Belgium coach Shane McLeod will be concerned at failing to score from seven penalty corners.
Clinical Germany made light of the French challenge, methodically building a four-goal advantage before conceding a late goal off a penalty corner.

The teams met in Hamburg recently and Germany put the information they gathered to good tactical use in the quarter-final, toying with their opponents at times.
Young skipper Tom Grambusch opened the scoring, Timm Herzbruch bagged a brace and Marco Miltkau increased the lead to four goals before Nicolas Dumont pulled one back.
With 17 places between world number two side Australia and Egypt, pre-match discussions among spectators centred on how many goals the Kookaburras would score.

Egypt, thrashed 10-0 by Belgium in their opening pool match, survived for 10 minutes before Jeremy Hayward scored from a penalty corner.
Mark Knowles, the 300-cap veteran in a young, transitional team, set up the second goal for Jake Whetton, who scored again after Matthew Swann gave Australia a 3-0 half-time advantage.