BHUBANESWAR: The Germans are coming and you can’t do anything about it. Well, you can try and stop them but it feels like the world’s worst job now. After burgling England in the quarterfinals of the World Cup two nights ago, they performed another job, this time over Australia to reach their first final since 2010.
Australia had led the game for the first 51 minutes and again took the lead with less than 120 seconds but with Germany, no lead is safe. Not against this rebranded, retrained side. Coach Andre Henning, after seeing his side come-from-behind to beat England in the shoot-out, had made the point about the importance of getting back some of the values the team had lost over the last few years.
They have also tweaked their tactics. “The biggest change is in tactics,” skipper Mats Grambusch said after the match. “We played man-to-man against Australia in the Olympics. Now we changed to zonal. On top of that, our on-ball game today was unbelievable. I think we didn’t concede any counterattacks because of our ball-possession game and we created lots of circle entries. Those two things were the biggest differences compared to Tokyo.”
If the win over England was sheer bloody-mindedness, this win over Australia was coming. The Kookaburras had taken the lead early doors but the pressure was beginning to tell well before they cracked. At half-time, coach Andre Henning told the players they were being too polite. “I believe he was completely right,” Grambusch explained.
“We were too polite in opposition ‘D’. There were too many chances which we just didn’t…dribbling and stuff like that. We just got to be straightforward in the ‘D’, hit it towards the target. That’s what we didn’t do well in the first quarter. We knew they are going to be strong, tough and athletic. We stepped back a little too much. That’s something we did change.” The other significant chance between Tokyo and now is the identity of the drag-flicker, Gonzalo Peillat. He’s widely recognised as the best flicker in the game currently and he showed why in a devastating display of ball-striking from the top of the D. In the end, a treble was just reward for the way in which he made Australia pay.
Peillat, who played for Argentina before shifting his allegiance following a falling out with the board, also revealed the kind of differences in the mental make-up of Germany and his former side, Argentina. “F*** my heart is about to explode,” he said in the mixed zone. “I say to the boys, this time, let’s try not to win always in the last second. It’s a different culture. We are really calm. Until the last second, we are there trying to find opportunities.
“The difference with Argentina is, we are more passionate and lose our minds a little bit. With German culture, we are more calm and trying to go for the tactics, trying to find what is the weakness point from the opponent. That’s the difference.”
Belgium win thriller
Germany will play Belgium. In a repeat of the 2018 finals, Belgium kept their nerve in the shoot-out to edge Netherlands after both sides shared the spoils in a four-goal thriller in normal time.
