KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 — The world number 32, Italy continued their winning streak at the FIH Men’s Series Finals hockey tournament by staging another upset, this time crushing hosts, Malaysia 4-2 in the last Pool B match, tonight.
After edging China 2-1 on Friday and routing Brazil 3-0 yesterday, Italy now topped Pool B with nine points, while Malaysia who started the campaign with 6-0 win against Brazil and a 4-4 draw with China, were placed second with four points, losing the automatic berth to the semi-finals.
The Italians showed another classy performance to stun world number 13, Malaysia with an early penalty corner goal in the ninth minute through Thomas Keenan at the National Hockey Stadium, Bukit Jalil.
Despite going on full attacking mode, the mighty Malaysian Tigers failed to net the equaliser until Faizal Saari’s penalty corner goal in the 26th minute.
As the Malaysian Tigers were still trying to figure out things after the half time, the Italians continued to surprise the odds with another field goal through skipper Augustin Nunez (31st minute), but the hosts leveled again through Muhammad Razie Rahim’s penalty corner in the 35th minute.
In the third quarter, a lapse in the Malaysian defence saw Italy netting another two goals through Nunez in the 43rd minute (penalty corner) and a direct hit by Francois Sior just before the break (45th minute).
Malaysia, powered by strong home crowd support, were unable to turn the table and succumbed to the Italians while their goalkeeper, Francesco Padovani was named as Man of the Match for his heroic saves.
While Italy took the automatic semi-final slot as the group leader, Malaysia are now forced to play a crossover match against Wales, the third placed team in the Pool A on Wednesday and a win will pit Malaysia against world number 19th, Austria who surprisingly topped Pool A.
“I am shocked at what I am seeing today, this is far below the level that these boys can play and they underperformed. Of course Italy have been defending well, there is no doubt…What we can do is passing the ball to create the space for chance.
“We lost a battle today but the tournament is not over. We need to play an extra game. Hopefully we will see a completely different story on the Wednesday,” head coach Roelant Oltmans said after the match.
Only the top two teams from the tournament will advance to the final round of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Qualifiers to be played in October and November.
Meanwhile, China bounced back from 0-2 down against world number 27, Brazil to secure their first win in the tournament by defeating the Samba Boys 3-2 in another Pool B match.
Brazil shocked China with two early penalty corner goals through Yuri van der Heijden in the seventh minute and Joaquin Lopez, three minutes later, however, the world number 14 China managed to equalise through goals from Su Lixing in the 13th minute and Tu Yuan Lian in the 45th minute.
China later confirmed their three points and a place in the knockout stage to keep their Olympics hopes alive when Dong Yang struck back of the net in the 54th minute.
The winless Brazil will be facing another winless team, Belarus who finished fourth in the Pool A in the 7/8 place playoff on Thursday. — Bernama
