Argentina became the second women’s team to seal a place in the semi-finals of the Paris 2024 Olympic hockey competition, despite falling behind three minutes from the end of their quarter-final match against Germany.
After 57 goal-less minutes, Die Danas took the lead when Vikoria Huse brilliantly dispatched a penalty stroke to put her side within touching distance of the final four. Incredibly, Las Leonas levelled the scores with just over a minute of the match remaining, Eugenia Trinchinetti guiding a perfect penalty corner deflection beyond Germany goalkeeper Nathalie Kubalski to force the match into a shoot-out.
Argentina goalkeeper Cristina Consentino was exceptional in the one-on-ones, keeping a clean-sheet as Julieta Jankunas and Zoe Diaz de Armas scored the goals in a 2-0 shoot-out victory, sparking wild celebrations both on the field and amongst the thousands of Leonas fans packed into Yves-du-Manoir Stadium.
“We are really happy, tired, but really happy”, said Argentina’s Agustina Albertarrio, who won silver with Las Leonas at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. “This is amazing. I love our team. I don’t have the words to explain it, but now we have to rest, and we have to keep fighting, because now we have a really hard game (in the semi-finals).”
When asked if she felt that Argentina’s hopes were over when Germany scored so late in the game, Albertarrio said: “No, we always say we are going to fight until the end. The other day, we played (a pool match) against Australia and they scored with six seconds to go, so we felt we had a lot of time.”
“When we scored the goal, I thought this our game”, continued Albertarrio. “Our goalkeeper was amazing, and the fans were too. Whenever we play in another country the fans are always there. They are amazing, really.”
Argentina’s opponents in the semi-finals will be either the Netherlands or Great Britain, who face each other later today.
The hockey competitions at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 take place from Saturday 27 July to Friday 9 August. Both the men’s and women’s competitions feature 12 teams, split into two pools of six ahead of quarter-finals, semi-finals and medal matches. For more information about the hockey competitions at Paris 2024, visit Olympics.Hockey.
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