DeanM
25-07-2004, 04:34 AM
Hi everyone
Yesterday we lost to Japan. They played well and had obviously completely thought through how to deal with our offence. It was 0-1 until near the end and then blew out to 0-3 because again we had to push harder. That meant we had to beat Canada and Portugal in order to qualify second in our pool and still have a chance at top 8 (we would have been able to play for 9th/10th with the winner of that playing the 7th/8th loser for 8th place). We beat Canada 5-0 and then an hour after that we played Portugal (our games were scheduled wrong and we almost had to play them back to back). We beat Portugal 4-1 in what may have been our best and most consistent game of the tournament.
That left us with 3 wins from 4 in our pool. Portugal and Japan still had to play the last pool game. Japan at that point had no 2nd round losses and Portugal had lost only to us. We needed Japan to beat or draw with Portugal and we'd get through. But Japan played poorly and lost 2-3, in what was an agonising game for us to watch. That meant that the three top teams in our pool had the same points, but we had the worst goal difference, in spite of conceding fewer goals than anyone else in our pool. We didn't score enough against USA the day before. So that was the end of our tournament really. :-( We were unlucky on goal difference in both the first AND the second rounds!
Then we played Hong Kong China in the evening and won 10-0. We had the final game, the 13th/14th play-off, this morning against Canada. It was 3-3 at full time and went to Golden Goal overtime. It was still even after 3 minutes but we scored the winner in the next period. So our final position was 13th.
The women had a great game yesterday against the Germans and just lost 4-5. This morning they beat Netherlands to qualify for the 5th/6th play-off and in the process earn a ticket to World Games next year. Then this afternoon they just lost to Australia 4-6 which put them at a final placing of 6th.
Thanks for the support and encouragement. It'll be good to get home soon!
- Dean
Yesterday we lost to Japan. They played well and had obviously completely thought through how to deal with our offence. It was 0-1 until near the end and then blew out to 0-3 because again we had to push harder. That meant we had to beat Canada and Portugal in order to qualify second in our pool and still have a chance at top 8 (we would have been able to play for 9th/10th with the winner of that playing the 7th/8th loser for 8th place). We beat Canada 5-0 and then an hour after that we played Portugal (our games were scheduled wrong and we almost had to play them back to back). We beat Portugal 4-1 in what may have been our best and most consistent game of the tournament.
That left us with 3 wins from 4 in our pool. Portugal and Japan still had to play the last pool game. Japan at that point had no 2nd round losses and Portugal had lost only to us. We needed Japan to beat or draw with Portugal and we'd get through. But Japan played poorly and lost 2-3, in what was an agonising game for us to watch. That meant that the three top teams in our pool had the same points, but we had the worst goal difference, in spite of conceding fewer goals than anyone else in our pool. We didn't score enough against USA the day before. So that was the end of our tournament really. :-( We were unlucky on goal difference in both the first AND the second rounds!
Then we played Hong Kong China in the evening and won 10-0. We had the final game, the 13th/14th play-off, this morning against Canada. It was 3-3 at full time and went to Golden Goal overtime. It was still even after 3 minutes but we scored the winner in the next period. So our final position was 13th.
The women had a great game yesterday against the Germans and just lost 4-5. This morning they beat Netherlands to qualify for the 5th/6th play-off and in the process earn a ticket to World Games next year. Then this afternoon they just lost to Australia 4-6 which put them at a final placing of 6th.
Thanks for the support and encouragement. It'll be good to get home soon!
- Dean