Monday 2nd October Went to watch Argentina play Korea today. Luciana Aymar (World's number one hockey player) looked like she phoned in her performance for a while. I was sitting in with the Argentinian fans again as I enjoyed it so much before. They were chanting "Go Las Leonas" and "Lucher! Lucher!" Luciana's nickname. The first penalty corner resulted in a straight strike goal but not for "Lucher". It wasn't until towards the end of the half that Aymar picked the ball up in midfield and found none of her team in front of her - so she did the team's job herself and ran on taking on the Korean defence one or two at a time. By the time she had made the goal keeper for a one-on-one situation the fans had died and gone to heaven. People were dancing and singing banging the floor, the stand was shaking. She went to strike and instead of firing at the keepers pads she used the strike as a sort of dummy and pushed pass him to tap home. The crowd went wild. She dropped her stick and slid on the pitch in front of the fans with both hands clenched in fists - raised them above her head and shouted "Yes! Yes!" A great hockey goal and moment. It all happened in a few seconds. I looked around and they were all shouting "Lucher! Lucher!" People had painted their faces in the colours of the Argentinian flag. If you're coming go and watch Argentina and sit with the their fans - there is little like this in hockey. A mention must also go to the International Hockey Federation who have produced a wonderful hockey video for half-time with shots of teams playing at all levels and covering every aspect of the game - under the slog "A sport for everyone" Very watchable. After talking to an Argentinian Security Guard, I found out that Las Leonas, the nickname of the Argentinian Women’s team – means the lions because the team often roar!! Tuesday 3rd October I arrived very early at the ground as always to file voice reports. The Indian team had made a complaint about the umpiring at their match on Sunday against England, they wanted a review of their first disallowed goal, but the International Hockey Federation have decided to take not action on the complaint. England have been training hard the previous night, I watched Jo Ellis fire around about 10-30 penalty corners with a variety of different stoppers including Chloe Rogers, although Chloe rarely takes part in the penalty corner routine in a competitive match for England. The training, hopefully sorted out the problem England had in their previous match again Indian, in which they had 10 penalty corners but didn’t score in any of them. Today they took on the Olympic champions at Athens 2004 – Germany - a really hard game. England needed a win to get any chance of reaching the semi-finals, a loss would have put them into the fifth to eighth classification matches. Which would not have been bad for England, but they want to do as best as they can. I wasn't too hopeful. I thought they would get beaten, but when it came to half time and it was still 0-0. Lisa Wooding had been pushing out some of the penalty corners which was a change from training the previous night. It was within two minutes of the second half that the pivotal moment in the game happened, Lisa pushed the penalty corner, and Crista Cullen struck a shot onto the goal keepers pads, the goal keeper had gone down to the floor. Lisa moved in close, the ball bounced up and was blocked on the goal line by a Germany player, which in the rules of Hockey is an immediate penalty flick. Helen Richardson the Captain stepped up to take in, however Germany subbed their goal keeper, she fired home and England were 1-0 up, they held on. The Germans fought back hard, I was watching through my fingers. We had a bit of luck by the end as we held on. The final score was 1- 0 England. A great result for England, not every day you get to beat the Olympic champions. If England can beat Spain they will qualify for the semi-finals, which will put them in the top four teams in the world and they will have out performed the England men’s team who came 5th, and they will have equalled the women’s England team record in a world cup, when they reached 4th in 1990. | 
