Euro Cup final second-leg preview: Recco and Radnicki hunting third trophy of the season

After winning the Italian cup for an 18th time and the league title for a 37th time this season, Pro Recco will complete an impressive treble if they lift the Euro Cup trophy in Sori on Saturday night. Sandro Sukno’s squad already have one hand on the silverware after their 16-12 victory against SPD Radnicki in the first-leg, but this week’s visitors are also targeting their own treble and will go all-out to add to their recent Regional League and Serbian league triumphs.

2024/25 Euro Cup Men  
Final, Second-Leg
Saturday 24 May 2025
(Local time shown)

19:00: Pro Recco (ITA) v SPD Radnicki (SRB)
(First-leg score: 16-12)

Saturday night’s decisive Euro Cup final clash is set to be an epic battle, as the champions of Italy and Serbia meet to decide which one of them will complete a prestigious treble this season.

After winning the first-leg 16-12 in Kragujevac two weeks’ ago, Pro Recco will start as the favourites to lift the famous trophy, but their head coach Sandro Sukno has warned his players there’s still plenty of work to be done in order to secure the club’s first Euro Cup title.

‘We may have won the first-leg by four goals, but that doesn’t mean we can relax,’ Sukno told European Aquatics. ‘We have huge respect for Radnicki, who are an excellent team.

‘This year’s Euro Cup has been a very good and strong competition, with the two teams in the final both winning their league championship, in Serbia and Italy.

‘This is our last game of the season and I want to see our team focused in front of our own fans to confirm another trophy, and for us to win a third cup.’

Following their first-leg success, Recco have now beaten Radnicki five-times in a row, with the Serbians’ last head-to-head victory coming way back in 2013.

But despite history being against them, and starting the second-leg four goals down, this week’s visitors are determined to turn the tie around.

‘It will be tough to come back, but we have nothing to lose, so I think we’ll be even more dangerous,’ said Radnicki’s Boris Vapenski. ‘If we start the match well and the score goes in our favour, we can build on that momentum.

‘We’ve already shown we can lead against Recco by three goals [in the first-leg, Radnicki led 5-2 and 6-3 in the second quarter], and if we avoid the kind of drop we had in Kragujevac, this game could go in a good direction for us.

‘We made mistakes at home and made things harder for ourselves, so we need to play our game, like we did for most of the match against Novi Beograd [in the Serbian league play-off final on Wednesday night].’

The respective domestic success for Recco and Radnicki arrived earlier this week, so both teams will be in a jubilant mood, but another factor favouring the Italians is that they have had an extra day’s rest ahead of Saturday’s second-leg.

Recco sealed their league crown on Tuesday night with an emphatic 9-5 victory away to Brescia (Recco led 7-1 at half-time), while Radnicki battled to a hard-fought 14-13 win against Novi Beograd on Wednesday.

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Andy Rollé for European Aquatics

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