The men’s final of the European leg of the FINA Water Polo World League starts Thursday in Podgorica, Montenegro. The top teams in Europe will be there. Just a few weeks before the 19th FINA World Championships in Budapest, the matches will show who is the best.
The FINA Water Polo World League Super Final will be held in Strasbourg, France from July 23-29. If you lose on day one, you have no chance of advancing to the finals. With eight teams competing, the best you can aspire for is fifth place and three solid matches leading up to the FINA World Championships in Budapest.
Many of these teams will be hoping that the second day of competition will be similar to the second week of the FINA World Championships.
Spain, who appeared like a sure thing for a medal in Tokyo last year before losing 9-5 to Hungary in the final hurdle, will face the Olympic bronze medalist Hungary in the first round on Thursday. Keep an eye out for Vendel Vigvari (HUN), a youthful up-and-comer, and Felipe Perrone, a five-time Olympian (ESP).
France and host Montenegro were a non-starter at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, despite Montenegro’s seventh-place finish in their penalty shootout win over Italy. Motivated by the support of their home fans, Montenegro will do whatever it takes to win.
But France, as the host country, will be competing, and just three teams from Podgorica will join it, all against the top four teams from outside Europe: the United States of America, Australia, Canada, and Brazil. Thomas Vernoux of France and Aleksa Ukropina of Montenegro are two players to keep an eye on.
In the third and final round, defending champion Serbia faces off against Greece in a rematch of the Olympic gold medal match from Tokyo 2020, which the Serbs won by a score of 13-10. That’s the second Olympic medal rematch, illustrating how difficult it will be to win this tournament. The spotlight will be on Dusan Mandic (SRB) and Ioannis Fountoulis (GR), a seasoned left-handed scorer (GRE).
As for the fourth matchup, it features defending world champion Italy against Croatia, who were eliminated by Hungary 15-11 in the quarterfinals in Tokyo. Italy’s disappointing quarterfinal loss to Serbia by four goals sent them home from Tokyo with a disappointing eighth place finish.
For Croatia, Marko Bijac is unstoppable in goal, and Andrea Fondelli, bronze medalist from Rio 2016, should show off her versatility.
Nine months later, every team has undergone a revitalization and is bringing in a wealth of untapped talent with the seasoned veterans.
The semifinalists from Thursday will compete for a bronze medal on Saturday, while the winners of Friday’s matches will advance directly to the Super Final.
France, on the other hand, may throw a wrench in the works by surprising everyone by cruising through the early matches and therefore destroying the projections. Whatever the outcome on Saturday night, three teams, including France, will have their sights set on Strasbourg.
The European teams have a busy year ahead of them
What with this final series, Budapest 2022, and the Super Final all coming before the European Championships in Split (CRO) in August/September.
In 2014, after winning the European and World League titles in the same year, Serbian head coach Dejan Savic told me that he could not lift his squad three times in one year, so he took a junior team to Almaty, Kazakhstan, to compete in the World Cup. What did they find in Almaty? Wow, that’s three medals in one year! The possibility exists that it might happen again this year.
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