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NEW DELHI: Two-time defending champions Germany stormed into the final of the men's field hockey World Cup with an emphatic 4-1 win over lacklustre England on Thursday.
The Germans, seeking a hat-trick of titles to add to the Beijing Olympic gold medal, avenged the 5-3 defeat by England in the European championships final last year.
Germany await the winners of Thursday's other semi-final between Australia and the Netherlands in the title clash scheduled for Saturday at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium.
Jan-Marco Montag put the world champions ahead in the sixth minute by converting his team's first penalty corner.
Oliver Korn made it 2-0 five minutes later when he deflected a pass from the right past the English goalkeeper James Fair.
England, playing their first World Cup semi-final since 1986, narrowed the margin in the 19th minute with their lone penalty corner of the match when Richard Smith scooped the ball into the net.
The Germans went to the break with a comfortable 3-1 lead as Martin Haner pumped in a penalty corner four minutes before half-time.
England raided the rival defence in the second session without success and then saw Linus Butt make it 4-1 for the Germans with a penalty corner 10 minutes from the end.
The Germans, with just three players who helped win the last World Cup at home in Monchengladbach in 2006, remain the only unbeaten team in the current tournament with four wins and two draws.
Earlier, four-time champions Pakistan slumped to an embarrassing 3-2 defeat by Canada on Thursday to finish last for the first time in the sport's premier event.
Scott Tupper scored a golden goal two minutes before the end of extra-time in the play-off for the 11-12 positions to hand Canada their first win in the 12-nation tournament.
A fuming Pakistan coach Shahid Ali Khan blamed senior players for the debacle and offered to resign.
"It is difficult to describe how I feel just now," said Khan, a former goalkeeper who was part of the 1982 World Cup winning squad.
"I am ready to quit if our federation wants. But I will first submit a detailed report on our performance in this tournament so that the cause of Pakistan's decline can be firmly dealt with.
"Senior players like Rehan Butt, Shakeel Abbasi and Sohail Abbas let us down. There were high expectations from them, but they did not perform as expected."
- AFP/yb
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