Yesterday’s 3-0 victory by Argentina in the United States U-20 Ladies Field Hockey Team in the Gold-Medal Game of the Junior Pan American Games meant more than medals.
For the winning side of Argentina, it meant automatic qualification for next year’s pan American games on the senior level. I have never seen this before in a sport, where the performance of a national team at age group level makes a berth possible in a tournament at the next age group or level.
It would be completely logical for Argentina, because a few players from last year’s Olympic tournament were on their side for the Junior Pan AM games.
The United States did not have that luxury.
And everything you had to do was look at a segment of the game to know that it would not be the Junior Eagles day. In the eighth minute of playing, an American player in midfield was expropriated on the way to goal in what could have been called a mistake on the Albicelestes. In a classic example “Ball moves faster than the player of the player”. A series of passes cut by the red -covered American defense. The last pass found Lourdes Pistron for the opening goal.
The piece lasted perhaps six seconds.
The group that took silver last night is a well-trained group of players who did not have the answers against an Argentina side that was reinforced with Olympic-caliber talent. Lessons will be learned, including the size of the gap between the two nations on the hockey side.
I have always said that the key to improving an American national side is the quality of a domestic competition that we do not have to the senior.
We have something that the NCAA is called at the U-20 level. But yesterday’s result makes you wonder if that is not the correct answer.
#August #play