If not for the dozen or so Junior World Cup brandings around the stadium periphery, it would have been easy to mistake this for a men-versus-boys contest. At least that’s what it felt like when the two teams lined up for the anthems, almost giving an impression that they were ordered to stand in descending order of their heights, starting with Germany.
The glaring difference in the physiques, with some German players one head taller than their Indian counterparts, got magnified once the game began. When Vishnukant Singh tried to steam ahead with the ball through the midfield, Mario Schachner simply lunged forward and used his long reach to snatch the ball away without any fuss, almost like stealing candy from a kid.
Minutes later, when forward Uttam Singh tried to play a lobbed pass to beat the two men bearing down on him, one of them, Erik Kleinlein, just lifted his stick and intercepted the ball mid-air with such ease that one felt sorry for Uttam.
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