Courtesy: LEN Media
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%).
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.
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.
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.
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.