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Spain, Pakistan surprise

The last round men's league matches of the Champions Trophy hockey provided surprise results today, with Spain edging past South Korea 4-3 and Pakistan beat Australia 2-1.

However, the outcome had little bearing on the final standings of the six-team league, as both South Korea and Australia had already earned the right to meet each other in the final.

In the first match of the day, Korea's consistent scorer Seung Tae Song was the first to score in the sixth minute, before Spain's Jordi Casas could equalise in the 13th minute. Ten minutes later both teams scored within a minute from each other, with Song scoring his second goal of the match and Antonio Iglesias finding the board for Spain. Korea took a 3-2 lead when Jong Ha Jeon converted a penalty-stroke, before Pol Amat could bring the Spaniards on parity.

With both teams scoring hard and fast in the first-half, this game had the beginings of one of the greatest matches of the 1999 Champions Trophy. However, the second half was more subdued, with both teams attacking and defending well. It was not until the 62nd minute of the game when the deadlock was broken. Seconds after a strike at goal hit the post, Spain's Juan Escarre was called upon to take a stroke, which he successfully converted to give his country a 4-3 victory over the Koreans.

The Australia-Pakistan match too was a keen affair. With their first penalty corner Australia's Brent Livermore trapped the ball close to the line followed by a fake by Jay Stacy and the scoring shot by Troy Elder took Australia to 1-0 in the 12th minute.

Pakistan struck back taking the score to 1-1, when Sohail Abbass scored from their first penalty-corner in the 16th minute.

The score was 1-1 at the halftime. In the 41st minute Pakistan got an opportunity to break the deadlock when they were awarded a penalty-corner. But it resulted in a number of miss-hits and miss-traps which allowed this scoring opportunity to slip away from the Pakistan.

Pakistan were in trouble when Amir Saleem was sent off in the 52nd minute, during which Australia were unable to take advantage. Pakistan took the match to 2-1 when Mohammad Sarwar scored in 56th minute.

In the women's section Germany and Argentina were in contention for the berth in the final and required a win in their respective last league matches, considering that The Netherlands would lose to Australia.

Germany did defeat Korea, and Argentina drew with New Zealand, but German dreams were shattered when The Netherlands drew with Australia to pip Germany and earned the right to play each other in the final.

Germany defeated Korea 4-0, Argentina drew with New Zealand 2-2 and The Netherlands held Australia 1-1.