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.
The form of each of the leading four frontline sides has been in consonance with its global ranking. And till it featured in a draw against the Netherlands in the fourth round followed by another similar outcome against Great Britain, Australia seemed to be in prime form to get back-to-back Olympic gold after none in the previous 70 years. These two stalemates aside - the first of which many here believe was a contrived one to close the door on minnows' remote prospects of causing an upset and getting into the last four at the expense of either the Aussies or the Dutch - Australia look the part for an encore.
Beaten 4-1 in the final of the Champions Trophy 2008 only recently, Spain must be keen to avenge, more than this latest reverse for the 6-3 drubbing in the Athens semis. In the current Spain squad of 16, as many as 11 are survivors from that hiding. And it is likely that they would neither have forgotten nor forgiven that humiliation.