World Cup Hockey Final

After seeing the World Cup Hockey final - one of the best finals of any sport in recent times - two things strike me. One - "It is the players who create interest in people and not the game itself". Any game can become popular in any country if it is played by right persons.

Two - To be frank, India is not a sporting nation and doesn't fit to play any sport. We may produce occasional brilliance through some special players like Sachin, Ramanathan Krishnan, Gopichand. But in long run, we won't sustain in any game. We don't have fitness of a German, aggression of an Aussie, passion of a Russian, and teamwork, tenacity and perseverance of any European countries. Neither we don't know to disguise like Pakistan. Though it sounds bad, it is a bitter truth. Our sport personalities want overnight fame and money without any hard work. Nor do they have passion for their sports. Adding to this, we have politics in every corner of our life.

Coming to the review of yesterday's final, I will say this final can be recorded for it's 'Never say die' attitude shown by both the teams. Pendulum was shifting for every twenty minutes. Both started off very well with good speed and control. Germans were slightly faster than Aussies while Aussies had a better technique and a lot of good players. Germans took the lead in 18th minutes through the crowd favorite Christopher Zeller.

I need to mention about this man - Christopher Zeller. I think he is the Roger Federer of Hockey. Very cool and collective, with tremendous speed and control, he looks like a complete hockey player. Instantly I have become his fan and now I am searching for his official homepage in the net.

Coming back to the match, then there was a typical Aussie response. They raised their game and they started to go on the offense and equalized through penalty corner. Courtesy Mark Knowles. They didn't stop there. They gave the Germans and their crowd an enima when Matthew Naylor scored the second for Kookaburras. They had the ascendancy at the end of first period.

In the second period, Continent country extended their lead to 3-1 when Troy Elder was successful in getting the ball past the German defense. Being an Indian myself, I though Aussies were going to be the next WC champions. But German's didn't think so. They pulled their socks and played with zeal. At the same time, surprisingly Aussies went into the shell with 7 Defenders, which is unusual for them. They normally play an aggressive brand of hockey, just like cricket. German reduced the margin to 2-3 when Moritz Fuerste slided the ball in. Then came the 'magical moment' of the match. Germans equalized through a Bjoern Emmerling lucky reverse-stick shot looping over the Aussie GK Stephen Mowlam. This goal was very interesting to watch - had the same flavor of an EPL soccer goal. Cometh the Time, Cometh the Man. Five minutes later, Zeller singlehandedly took the ball from German half to Aussie half and scored the decider as if he was meant to do that. After that Aussies had one close chance in 66th minute when Luke Doerner fired the ball against a post. German maintained their nerve and won the final before their home crowd for the successive world cup.

To me, two excellent teams played a great match and the better team with a great player, who instored the best for the final, won the cup. Deservingly so.

Final Say: Christopher Zeller is a paradigm for all the sporting personalities of how to perform in the crunch situations and when the team needed the most. He had pressure and expections on him and he delivered the goods for the German crowd.