Hockey World Cup 2018, Quarterfinal 1: 3 reasons why Argentina lost to England

#1 Over-dependence on Peillat hurts Argentina's fortunes

Gonzalo Peillat

Gonzalo Peillat has been the best player of Argentina for the last four years. He also helped his country to finish third in the same tournament four years ago. He single-handedly helped Argentina to win the Gold medal in the Rio Olympics, which also made him the best drag flicker of the world.

But no player from any sport carried his team for the entire life and now it is high time for Argentina to look at the other options in order to score goals. Argentina forgot that Peillat would not win the game for them every time.

Peillat scored half of his team’s goals in this edition. Agustin Mazzilli was behind him with three goals. But apart from these two senior players, no one else looked confident in the circle. Argentina missed many opportunities against France due to the profligacy of their strikers.

Nowadays, with new techniques, Penalty corners are not effective as it was before. Defenders are coming out with new strategies to stop penalty corners. So the task for drag-flickers has become increasingly hard as they are short of ideas.

Even the best drag flicker cannot get you a goal from every opportunity. But Argentina might have thought otherwise and their over-reliance on Peillat denied them an entry into the last four.

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