Korea stun Pak to enter final

The Rediff Team

At the State Hockey Centre on Thursday, the upsets continued. And the biggest one to date came when the Koreans outran and outplayed Pakistan, installed joint favourites for an Olympic gold, in the first semifinal of the men's hockey tournament.

The 1-0 margin gave Korea a first-ever entry into an Olympic final -- an event marked by unrestrained tears of joy on the part of the Koreans, and dropped heads and sagging shoulders on the part of Pakistan.

Pakistan, though, have only itself to blame for finding its medal hopes blighted. In the shots on goal stakes, both teams were equal with four apiece, neither side converting any. But when it came to penalties, Korea scored one out of three tries while Pakistan, boasting the services of Sohail Abbas, one of the best conversion specialists in the game today, got six chances and wasted all six.

Given that it was a match-up between two teams known for their footspeed and skill, the first half was a listless affair, with Pakistan in particular showing no inclination to press forward. Korea had the better of the exchanges in the first 35, goal-less, minutes, concentrating on possession hockey, time and again taking the ball deep into its own half before building a gradual, well-planned attack.

Seung-Tae Song showed, very early on, how dangerous he could be with a fine run that had the whole Pakistan defence in disarray. Only an opportunistic thrust of the pads by the Pak goalie kept that one out of goal.

The highlight of the first half came in the 23rd minute, when Korea forced its only penalty corner of the first session. In an interesting variant, Kyung-Seok Kim on top of the D shaped as if to drive, then raced through the Pak defence to just outside the left corner of the goal. Meanwhile, another Korean took the strike, waiting to draw the defence out and then sweeping it out on the left, where Kim dived, deflected, but just failed to guide the ball into the goal.

Pakistan, for its part, found it immensely difficult to penetrate the rock-solid Korean defence, and this did not augur well for the course of the game.

The second half saw Pakistan gain more possession than in the first session -- but the star-studded Pak forward line was in an incredibly prodigal mood, squandering fine opportunities both from the field and off penalty corners.

Korea on the other hand played calm, controlled hockey, made two more opportunities through penalty corners, and converted one. The move began with Song producing perhaps the best run of the match, racing up the field with the ball glued to his stick, subtle body-feints taking out one Pakistani after another until the inevitable check yielded the expected penalty corner. And again, the Koreans showed good inventiveness, with the striker at the top of the D squaring it for a colleague, who in turn swept it forward, for yet another Korean to intercept, square again this time to his left, where the dangerous Song had slipped into space. Song struck home first time, and Korea had taken the lead.

From then on, it was cat and mouse, with Koreans in the unfamiliar role of cat. The goal had come in the 57th minute and for the remaining 13 minutes of play, the Koreans gave an exhibition of controlled defensive play, running the ball around, defending strongly, and thwarting the concerted attempts by the Pakistanis to score.

Pakistan during the last 10 minutes looked very good. And when you contrast that session with the previous 60 minutes, you come away with the feeling that perhaps Pakistan went into this game expecting an easy win, and did not apply their minds, and their skills, until it was far too late.

Even then, in the 65th minute Pakistan did get a chance to equalise when Sohail Abbas strode up to take a penalty. The best in the business scooped the ball about five feet wide of the left post.

And that was pretty much that, as far as the game was concerned -- the Koreans spun the ball around for the few remaining minutes, shut the Pakistanis out, and collapsed in tears of triumph at the final whistle.

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