Hockey: Lombi goals lift Argentina

Argentina beat Germany 3-1 in the latest Champions Trophy match here yesterday thanks to two goals from Jorge Lombi, who also set up the third.

Lombi opened the scoring by firing a rising drag flick into the net in the fifth minute, then created the second goal in a counter-attack five minutes after the interval with a defence-splitting pass to Mario Almada, who tapped the ball past the goalkeeper. Lombi was again on target in the 58th minute to put Argentina 3-0 up.

Germany missed a penalty stroke in the 63rd minute, when Alexander Sahmel's shot rebounded off the crossbar, before Niklas Meinert managed to get a goal back.

The Argentinian coach, Jorge Ruiz, said that his players had controlled the pace of the game, in contrast to their 6-5 defeat by Pakistan on Sunday. "We find it easy to play against European teams," Ruiz said. "It was evident by the way we managed to keep possession of the ball for most of the time."