In a matter of seconds, the China Cosentino disappeared buried under the rest of Las Leonas.
In a match that Argentina tied with a minute and a half to go, the goalkeeper was decisive in the penalty shootout to give the Argentine women’s field hockey team a pass to the semifinals of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
A more agonizing scenario was impossible: Germany opened the scoring with a penalty with three minutes left, Ferrara pulled the goalkeeper back to put in one more play and turn on the German goal, and almost in the next action, when Argentina only had a thread of ninety seconds left to live, Julieta Jankunas He tied the game.
And in the final stretch, Cosentino, who felt she owed her teammates a penalty for the foul that led to the Germans’ goal, rose to the occasion to stop four penalty attempts by Germany.
“It was very hard. The girls didn’t even give me time. I went to the bench, I broke down, and they told me, ‘let’s go in, let’s go in, let’s go in.’ A minute later they scored and I had to go back on the field,” Cosentino said.
“I had to give it back by saving penalties.”
Cosentino returned the win, and for the sixth time in the last seven editions of the Olympic Games, Las Leonas will play in the semi-finals.
The rival will be the most fearsome of all, the Netherlands: current Olympic, world and European champions. In two of those tournaments, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and the 2022 World Cup, they defeated Argentina in the final.
The semi-finals of Paris 2024 will be an opportunity for revenge.
