Olympic::Men's Hockey Day 7 Preview

World champions Germany play Spain for Hockey gold

Hockey world champions Germany will hope to add Olympic gold to their collection when they play Spain for the Men's gold medal at the Olympic Green Hockey Stadium on Saturday, August 23. Australia and the Netherlands will clash in the bronze medal match.

The gold medal match will be a case of Spanish flair versus German efficiency. Spain will hope it will be third time lucky after finishing with the silver medal at the Moscow Games in 1980 and the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

Spain has the talent, the ability and character to upstage world champions Germany and they showcased all three attributes beating Australia 3-2 in the semifinal after being down 0-2.

Germany, although winning the Pool A encounter 1-0 which put their campaign back on track, could find the going far more difficult. They will need to be much sharper in attack than they were against the Netherlands in the semifinal, which they won on penalties, though their tight defense should bring them few concerns.

The bronze medal match will be between the Netherlands and Australia. The teams also met in a medal match at the Athens Games, in which Australia beat the Dutch to take gold. The first meeting between these two teams in the preliminary round ended 2-2, but this time, with a medal at stake, the match won't end in a draw.

The Dutch will be keen to avenge the Athens defeat and provide fitting farewells for goalkeeper Guus Vogels, midfielder Teun de Nooijer and skipper Jeroen Delmee, all probably playing their fourth and last Olympics.

South Africa will face China in the classification 11-12 match -- the first match of the day. A contest between two evenly matched sides, but for the Chinese team, making their debut in the Men's competition, the tournament has been a learning experience. China earned one point in the preliminary round from a draw with New Zealand. South Africa, despite losing all of their five matches in pool B, showed improvement in the latter part of the competition.

The Republic of Korea and Great Britain will meet in the classification 5-6 match. Both teams had their chances to finish higher but brief moments cost them precious points in their pool matches. Great Britain came through qualifying competition with two wins and two draws and, with some luck, could have made the top four.