Korea Surprised Us With Two Early Strikes: Germany Captain
NEW DELHI: Germany captain Maximillian
Muller on Monday said Korea surprised them with two early strikes but expressed
happiness at the comeback in the second half of their hockey World Cup Pool A
match.
Defending champions Germans had to toil hard to snatch the
draw from the clutches of defeat after world ranked fifth Korea went 2-0 up in
the first half at the floodlit Major Dhyan Chand National
Stadium.
“They (Korea) surprised us with the two goals in the first
half but there was no change in their style of play,” Muller
said.
“But I am quite happy with our comeback. At the end we had lot
of chances to score but we failed. We are looking forward to get better step by
step,” he said.
The Germans earned as many as five penalty corners in
the first half but failed to covert a single one and Muller blamed it on the
deep nature of the turf.
“I am not that happy with our penalty corner
conversion. We got five penalty corners in the first half but did not score a
single goal.
“The pitch has something do with it. The pitch is quite
deep. When you go for drag-flicks the stick gets stuck a little bit on the
pitch. The pitch is also little bit bouncy, but it will get better and better
with every passing day,” Muller said.
Germany coach Markus Weise,
however, said he was not very happy with the result but praised his boys for the
comeback.
“I am little bit unhappy with the start to the tournament
but the boys invested a lot of hard work to comeback into the match and this is
the positive thing that came out of this match,” he said.
“It is very
difficult to score against Korea. They are very good in counter attacks. But
this inexperienced side didn’t panic after they were 0-2 down,” Weise
added.
Korea captain Ho Jong Seo and coach Kyo Seok Shin said his
team lacked the sting in the second half of the match.
“We gave our
all in the first half and so we were powerless in the second half,” Seo
said.
“We played well in the first half but we played well only in
patches in the second half. I am not very satisfied with the result, we can do
better than this.
“We will take one match at a time and try to give
our best in the next match. We are taking this tournament as a preparatory event
ahead of the Asian Games,” he added.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com