Malaysia

Malaysia qualified for the ninth placing playoff in the Junior World Cup hockey tournament when they downed Egypt 2-1 in the cross-over classification match at the Rotterdam Hockey Club in Holland yesterday.

The Malaysians took a 2-0 lead by the 46th minute but the Egyptians fought back to score a consolation goal with two minutes left on the clock.

Malaysia will meet England today for the ninth placing playoff (9pm Malaysian time). England defeated Belgium 3-1 in the other cross-over classification match.

At the last Junior World Cup in 2001 in Hobart, Malaysia finished in 12th position.

The midfielder then set up Ismail Abu for the second goal in the 46th minute. After that, the Malaysians struggled to find their rhythm.

Instead, it was Egypt who got going and found their scoring touch through Hanafy Mohamed in the 68th minute through a field attempt.

The match could have gone into extra time if the Egyptians had not missed a penalty stroke in the 50th minute when Abdul El Hamid Mohamed’s shot to the right was well anticipated by Malaysian goalkeeper Khairul Nizam Ibrahim.

Yesterday’s match was also the first time in four matches that Zulkifli Rejab did not get his name on the score-sheet. The defender has scored 12 goals so far and is in the running for the top scorer’s award.

Earlier in the fifth to eighth placing classification match, Germany scored an extra time golden goal in the 73rd minute to beat South Korea 5-4.

The Koreans were leading 4-3 until the 69th minute. With 30 seconds remaining on the clock the Germans managed to score the equaliser through Oliver Korn’s field attempt.

That gave Germany the extra push and three minutes into extra time skipper Sebastian Draghun scored with a field goal to put them in the fight for fifth place.

Earlier, the Koreans had scored their goals through a brace from Jang Jong-hyun in the eighth and 51st minutes while Yeo Chang-young and Hong Sung-kweon scored in the 16th and 36th minutes respectively. For Jong-hyun, it was his 13th goal of the tournament.

For the Germans, Oliver was also on target in the 14th minute and this was followed by goals from Benjamin Wess in the 42nd minute and Timo Witthaus in the 54th minute.

Germany will meet hosts Holland in the fifth placing playoff tomorrow.

In the other classification match, Holland came back from a goal down to beat Pakistan 4-1.

Pakistan took the lead in the 23rd minute with Mohamed Imran scoring from a penalty corner. Holland found the equaliser, also from a penalty corner, in the 41st minute through Robert van der Horst.

Then, Wouter van Straten scored with a field goal in the 50th minute while Van der Horst was again on target from a penalty corner set-piece move two minutes later. Van der Horst completed his hat-trick in the 55th minute when he converted a penalty stroke.

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