AMSTERDAM, July 4: Germany beat Netherlands 5-4 to win the men's four-nation field hockey tournament here on Sunday in an exciting, high-scoring and quality match rated the best of the modern era of artificial turf hockey.

Netherlands raced to a 2-0 lead in the first five minutes. Matthijs Brouwer deflected in a goal at the right post and Floris Evers popped a goal in between the pads of Clemens Arnold in Germany's goal.

Germany answered five minutes later with Christoph Beckmann's goal, pushed from the left side of the top of the circle and deflected off Netherlands defence into goal.

Marten Eikelboom, seeking selection for Athens after a three-year lay-off from the national team, scored his first goal of the tournament 10 minutes later, beating Germany's captain Florian Kunz with a turn in the circle to shoot through Arnold to have Netherlands ahead 3-1 after 20 minutes.

The frantic pace quickened and with it came midfield and defensive errors leading to scoring chances and more goals. Bjorn Emmerling kept Germany in the game at 3-2 with a stunning goal 10 minutes from the break.

At a free hit at the top of the circle, Philipp Crone saw Emmerling moving wide on the left and unmarked, passed to Emmerling who made a drag-flick from wide to on the left of the circle into the right top of goal past Klass Veering in Netherlands goal.

Germany's Bjorn Michel opened the second half with a deflection into goal, in the first minute after the restart to have Germany on a level footing at 3-3 with Netherlands.

Christoph Zeller put Germany ahead 4-3 with a backstick drive across Veering from the left of the circle scoring inside the right post at the end of the third quarter.

Karel Klaver set up the equaliser for Netherlands four minutes later, beating Philipp Crone on the right backline to flick high across goal where Ronald Brouwer volleyed into the open goal.

Both teams went for the win with Netherlands star penalty corner converter Taeke Taekema throwing his second penalty corner conversion wide of the goal. Germany's Matthias Witthaus broke the deadlock with a backstick strike from the left of the circle high inside the right post with 4 minutes on the clock.

Germany looked to be in trouble when Michael Green in his 307th game for Germany received his fourth career yellow card suspension a minute later. Player of the tournament, Netherlands Teun de Nooijer, had one chance to score in the last 2 minutes without success.

Netherlands will finalise its Athens selections in the second week of July with further. Germany has more matches in Dusseldorf against India, France and Great Britain in two weeks time.

On Saturday, Pakistan came from 2-3 down to win 5-3 over India and take bronze. In a titanic struggle with the lead changing three times, India played above the level of their other performances here to shake off Pakistan's early 1-0 advantage and head Pakistan 3-2 in the middle of the second half.

Pakistan came back with three goals in the last 13 minutes to secure the win. Pakistan had crushed India 6-1 on Wednesday in a group match. Pakistan's conversion rate made the difference to the scoreline as India had five penalty corner chances and Pakistan six.

For Pakistan, Sohail Abbas converted two penalty corners with clean shots, Kashif Jawad and Rehan Butt took rebounds off Adrian D'Souza in India's goal and Rehan chimed in with a field goal two minutes from time.

For India, Dilip Tirkey converted one penalty corner and Baljit Dhillon Singh and Gagan Ajit Singh contributed field goals. Roelant Oltmans, Pakistan's coach, heaped praise on Sohail Abbas who reached 200 games for Pakistan last Thursday.

"Originally he was a penalty corner specialist and now more and more Sohail is coaching the other players and is one of the key communicators in the team," Oltmans said. "Sohail is eager to learn and has a great approach to training because he wants to learn something from every training session to become a better player."

Oltmans was concerned with the inconsistent play of his team in the lead up to Athens. "We did not play a consistent tournament. In the first match against India and for 20 minutes of the second half against Netherlands we played very well," Oltmans said.

"If we can play a consistent tournament in Athens at 80 percent of our capacity all the time we will win through to the semifinals," Oltmans predicted. "If we do not make the semifinals in Athens it will not be because the boys did not do their best.

It will be because other teams are better and we will have to accept that. If we score five goals in each match in Athens we will reach the semifinals." -AFP