Times of India: Team showed great fighting spirit despite four players were down with fever: Germany coach

Feroz Khan

BHUBANESWAR: On Friday, four Germany hockey players fell ill and therefore did not take the field against Australia in an all-important semi-final clash of the Hockey World League Final on Saturday.

Along with captain Martin Haner, Christopher Ruhr, Marco Miltkau and Julius Meyer missed the Australia clash due to high fever and a depleted Germany faced Australia with just 12 [plus goalkeeper Mark Appel who played as on outfield player] fit players. That meant, Germany were forced to defend deeper and they put up a superb show keeping prowling Australian attackers at bay in the first half. It was only in the final minutes of the third quarter that Dylan Wotherspoon broke their spirited defense to put Australia on the path to a 3-0 win.

Germany beat India 2-0 in the round-robin stage but their coach Stefan Kermas says that counts for nothing if he cannot have all his players fit and available. “It’s not about confidence but what team can play tomorrow. It makes a bit of difference. If Germany plays with only 16 players we sure will be a confident team. But to play with 12 players for 60 minutes is really difficult,” he told TOI Sports after the match.

Germany next face India on Sunday in the bronze medal match and Kermas isn’t sure whether he will be able to field a full-strength squad against the hosts. “I don’t know. We will take a look tonight and I am not sure that they can play [tomorrow]. I think two of them have really high fever. They are ok but not match fit,” he said.

Echoing Argentina coach Carlos Retegui, the 38-year-old said he is also unhappy with the scheduling of the tournament saying some teams have got more rest days than other. He gave example of Sunday’s bronze medal match where they will be facing India who had an off-day on Saturday.

“I was really disappointed about the schedule as I and Argentina coach had said before. The final also has the same [problem]. For the bronze medal match where one team has one day of rest and the other doesn’t, it is kind of unfair. It doesn’t matter whether a team gets three or four days’ rest but it’s about the question of zero days off and one-day rest. So, I’m not happy about it,” he said.

Kermas rued the absence of the four players but said he was proud of the way his men responded in the semi-finals.

“Four of our guys were ill today. We had a fever attack and had to make our goalkeeper [Appel] as an outfield player. We tried to defend a little bit deeper, focused on counterattacks. I was really happy that we had 0-0 scoreline for most part of the game. We got penalty corners but didn’t score. Apart from that I am really proud of my team because of the great fighting spirit they showed tonight,” he said after the match.