Australia vs Spain, Netherlands vs Germany semis today

BEIJING - As far as hockey is concerned, not an iota has changed in its hierarchy since Athens 2004. The same quartet - Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain - that fought for honours at Athens has again made it to the last four without so much as a decent challenge from the remaining field of eight. This quite clearly reflects that progress amongst the pretenders - and that includes once incredibly mighty Pakistan - has neither been sufficient nor satisfactory to make a qualitative change.

The semi-finals today thus present an exact repeat of what we witnessed at Athens, with Australia meeting Spain and the Netherlands taking on Germany.

Would it also be a repeat of the result four years ago is a point of conjecture, but Australia and Holland - the two finalists at Athens - even in the rarified strata seem to be streets ahead of the opposition.

Pakistan meanwhile would be plumbing the depths by fighting for a spot at the bottom of the middle cluster of four. And even if it beats New Zealand today, it would end up a highly unsatisfactory seventh - its lowest ever in its endeavours at the Olympic Games since 1948.