1-1 draw with China seals the deal but Olympic Champions the Netherlands lie in wait 

Carlos Retegui created a remarkable moment of history by guiding two international teams to the semi-final stages at the Rabobank Hockey World Cup, with Argentina's women claiming a place in the last four only hours after the men had achieved exactly the same thing. 

Las Leonas reached the semi-finals of the women's competition thanks to a 1-1 draw with China, a result which guaranteed a second place finish behind USA, the surprise winners of Pool B in the final match of the tournament to be played at the wonderful GreenFields Stadium here in The Hague. All remaining World Cup matches will take place in the 15,000 seater Kyocera Stadium. 

Argentina's failure to top the pool has come at a cost, meaning that they will now face reigning Olympic Champions and tournament hosts the Netherlands in the semi-finals, with USA and Australia going head to head in the other semi. 

Following USA's 4-2 victory over South Africa earlier in the day, Argentina started the match knowing that they needed a big win over China if they were going to move ahead of the Americans on goal difference at the top of Pool B.  The South Americans needed to win by five clear goals to take the top spot ahead of their North American rivals. Meanwhile, China started the day 3rd in the pool, three points behind Las Leonas but eight goals worse off on goal difference, meaning that the also knew that a mammoth win was necessary to keep their World Cup dream alive. 

Despite both teams needing big wins, just one goal was scored in a fairly even first half. Argentina were the scorers, with Carla Rebecchi touching home from close range after Delfina Merino had an effort saved by China keeper Wang Mengyu. 

For the second match in succession Argentina were missing the creative talents of eight times FIH Player of the Year Luciana Aymar, who spent the entire contest watching from the sidelines. Coach Retegui clearly did not want to risk the veteran superstar aggravating the hamstring injury that she picked up against New Zealand, but her presence was sorely missed as Las Leonas struggled to break down their Asian opponents.  

Argentina were guilty of some wasteful finishing with the few chances that they had, and it proved to be costly as China grabbed an equaliser 12 minutes from the end of the match. Peng Yang was the scorer, robbing the ball from an Argentine defender before lashing a tomahawk shot into the roof of Belen Succi's goal. It was China's only shot on target all game, and proved to be enough to seal a draw against the reigning World Champions. 

"It was a close game I think, we couldn't win or score the goals we needed to take first place but we reached an objective by making the semi-final", said Argentina's Delfina Merino in the post-match interview. "We'll try to fix the things that didn't work today and do better next game. The semi-final will be like a final, which is ok for us. Although we didn't win today, the dream is alive."