All favorites cleared the first hurdle at the beginning of the track in the men’s tournament at the European Water Polo Championships in Barcelona. Though Italy’s 14-1 downing of Germany stood out on the opening day.
Germany was on verge to finish a match at a major tournament without scoring a goal for the first time since 1976 when they lost to Hungary 4-0 at the Olympics in Montreal. That time the games lasted 4×5 minutes, though, and now their drought lasted much longer as they scored their only goal against Italy with 1:13 remaining from the match, after 30:47 minutes. Italy’s defense worked brilliantly, limited their rivals to 24 shots, Marco del Luongo posted 16 saves on 17 attempts (94.1%).
“We played a good defense. It was the first game of the Championships and as always it’s cardinal to start with a win. The result isn’t surprising. We are now focused on the next game which is very important to us,” Italy coach Alessandro Campagna said.
While it was a convincing opening from the Italians before the big clash with Hungary in the next round, the Magyars struggled a bit for a while against Georgia. Early in the third the favorites led only 5-4 and with 2:45 to go in the penultimate period Hungary was just 7-5 up. Then switching gears and lifting the level of concentration helped them to stage a 5-0 rush in the remaining time and gaining a fine win after all.
“It was a good chance to practice and get settled for the tournament. I don’t mind that it was a bit tougher than expected as it prepared us for the next big match against Italy. It was more balanced for a while as we committed too many mistakes, we have to cut back the numbers of those heavily in order to gain a positive result in the next match. Against Italy it doesn’t matter how, just a single goal should favour as at the end,” Hungary goalie Viktor Nagy said.
Montenegro also had some minor headaches against France despite taking an early 3-0 lead. The French came back from time to time, with 1:55 to go they cut their deficit to 7-6 but Alexandar Ivovic’s great action goal closed down the contest.
“A period of hard work and training is behind us and it became visible in this match. However, we still need to work on our tactics if we’re to go as far at this Europeans as we want to. We had some problems but managed to come back into the game. I think we missed 4-5 extramen so we need to work on that,” Ivovic said.
Title-holder Serbia did a clean job against Romania without burning too much energy, and the world champion Croats did the same in their encounter with the Netherlands. Greece thrashed the Turks by 26 goals, Russia downed Slovakia convincingly and host Spain enjoyed an easy cruising against Malta.
“What can I say… Two very different teams. We already have our minds on the next game against the Netherlands. We want to be ready and prepared for the tough clashes ahead. We will do our best to get secure the best position in our group,” Greece coach Theodoros Vlachos said.
Photo Courtesy: Deepbluemedia/Giorgio Scala
European Championships, Day 3
Men’s Round 1
Group A
Georgia v Hungary 5-12
Germany v Italy 1-14
Group B
Montenegro v France 8-6
Malta v Spain 4-21
Group C
Turkey v Greece 1-27
Croatia v Netherlands 15-8
Group D
Russia v Slovakia 12-6
Serbia v Romania 11-5
Fixtures, Day 4
Women’s Round 3
14.00 Russia v Germany (B)
15.30 Hungary v Serbia (B)
17.00 Greece v Croatia (A)
18.30 France v Israel (A)
20.30 Netherlands v Italy (A)
22.00 Spain v Turkey (B)
Follow all games live and look for the detailed stats and play-by-play descriptions on www.len.eu
— The above press release was posted by Swimming World in conjunction with LEN European Aquatics. For press releases and advertising inquiries please contact Advertising@SwimmingWorld.com.
Congratulations Italy
Astonishing