(20 July 1996; Day 01)
For Germany, it was a game of missed opportunities. For Spain, it was a game which proved to themselves and the world that their team could play with anyone.
In the opening game of the men's field hockey competition at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Spain combined incredible goaltending from Ramon JUFRESA with an opportunistic offense and smothering defense to hand defending gold medalist Germany a 1-0 defeat.
"We're very disappointed," said German coach Paul LISSEK. "Playing on this field for the first time created some problems that we didn't expect. We made too many technical mistakes today, and they were mistakes that we didn't expect to make. Our pass play was not very good, and we couldn't seem to get the ball in the circle because of that and the Spanish defense, which was very solid."
When Germany was able to advance the ball through the Spanish defense, JUFRESA was there to thwart the attack. Whether it was a diving save just inside the net or taking on an attacker one-on-one and knocking the ball away, JUFRESA was in command of his area.
"Their goalie managed quite well," said German captain Klaus MICHLER. "We knew Spain was a good team, but we were very surprised by their performance today."
But as crisp as the Spanish defense was, the German attack never seemed to hit on all cylinders. Several crossing passes through the Spanish circle went untouched. A German shot with 4:03 remaining made a loud klink as it bounded away from the goal pole. And, what seemed to be the tying goal for the Germans with 1:40 left in the contest was disallowed because the ball had not come to rest on the penalty corner play.
Now Germany must go back to the proverbial drawing board to find out what went wrong against the Spanish. Spain, meanwhile, will prepare for an even tougher opponent on Monday when the Spaniards meet Pakistan.
"We know that Pakistan is the best team in the world and we respect them," said Juantxo GARCIA-MAURINO. "But we're not going to change our strategy that we have been working on for many months in preparation for this tournament."
"Our strategy is to use a fast attack and use it against any team," offered Juan DINARES. "We made a plan several months ago, and we're not going to change."
This is an official publication of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Sports Publications Department. Written by Kevin Henry.
| More tickets were sold to the competitions of the 1996 Games than to any other Olympic Games or sports event in history. The 8.6 million ticket sales figures topped sales to the Los Angeles and Barcelona Games combined. |