Germany claimed a 3-2 win over India in the men's hockey semifinal at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday after Marco Miltkau scored the winner by lifting the ball over veteran goalkeeper PR Sreejesh with six minutes left on the clock.
Germany last reached the final at London 2012 when they claimed gold and will now play the Netherlands, who have not conceded a goal in their two knockout stage matches.
India, who are back in the bronze medal match where the face Spain after beating Germany in Tokyo for third place, must wait another four years to snap a gold medal drought since 1980.
Skipper Harmanpreet Singh opened the scoring on a penalty corner in the seventh minute with a high floating ball going over a diving goalkeeper Jean-Paul Danneberg following several set piece tries in a row.
Two penalties by Jarmanpreet Singh in the second quarter cost India the lead as defender Gonzalo Peillat scored with a rifling strike on a penalty corner in the 18th minute and Christopher Ruehr added on a penalty stroke in the 27th.
The third quarter opened with a beautiful diving save by Danneberg to deny the India skipper an equaliser off of a penalty corner.
"It is a big privilege for me to play here and to show the world where my qualities are," Danneberg said.
"Now all the focus is for the gold medal match and hopefully we will keep our defence power forward and we can win against the Netherlands. We know from the past that the Dutch have extremely big problems to score against us.
"The Dutch players need a very good day to score four goals against us. I think we are the mountains and they will have big problems to climb us."
Sukhjeet Singh scored a few minutes later in the 36th as another Harmanpreet drag-flick bounced off his stick and over the outstretched Danneberg but Miltkau then secured the win.
Heartbreak in Paris 💔
— Hockey India (@TheHockeyIndia) August 6, 2024
A challenging semi-final ends in defeat for India against Germany. Hold your heads high, Team India, we are proud of you! We go against Spain for the Bronze Medal Match on 8th August.
India 🇮🇳2️⃣-3️⃣🇩🇪 Germany
Harmanpreet Singh 7' (PC)
Sukhjeet Singh 36'… pic.twitter.com/33MGD2ksVk
"We played very good hockey today," Harmanpreet said. "We played so many chances, short goal, some set pieces, but today the finishing was again not there.
"We are not going to take Spain easy and we try to give everything we have and try to win that bronze medal."