China defeats Germany by 5-3 in 2011 Rabo FIH Champions Trophy
Zhao Yudiao, the current FIH Young Player off the Year, led China to an important 5-3 victory over the German athletes in the play-off game for the seventh place at 2011 Rabo FIH Champions Trophy, played at Wagner Stadium, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on July
3.
The victory was China’s first ever in this edition of the Champions Trophy, while their second against Germany in 10 Champions Trophy matches.
The match started with clear dominance by the Chinese women who played a free flowing hockey in the entire match and especially in the first half in which they scored four goals out of their total five while their opponents could score only one goal.
The second part of the match belonged to the Germans who played relatively better hockey in the second half as compared to the first one and made three strikes in total, but they could not manage to stop the Chinese at any stage of the match and at the end
it was China that won the match and found the seventh spot in the event.
This performance was the worst ever by the Germans as they finished at the bottom of the rankings for the first time in Champions Trophy. Their previous worst was the fifth place in the 2005 Champions Trophy.
The Chinese women took twenty minutes to open their account, when Sun Sinan scored the opener on a drag flick, while their lead was doubled by Zhao Yudiao, 2010 FIH Young Player of the Year, just minutes after the opening goal. Zhao ticked the score-board
for the second time, when she directed the ball into the German net on a penalty-corner in the 25th minute, while their fourth goal of the match was scored in the dying moments of the first half, when Song Oingling stunned the Germans with a breathtaking
effort. The Chinese were leading by 4-1 at the interval.
However the second half looked the opposite of the first half, where the Germans made a stunning comeback by scoring two goals in a short span of time in the very start of the second half, while their third came midway in the second half before Zhao completed
her hat-trick in the 54th minute. Janine Beermann, Marie Mavers and Julia Muller were the contributors for the Germans. The match ended at 5-3 to China.
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