Champions League water polo – highlights show and five talking points from matchday 2

1. Quite unusually, both Spanish teams fell on Day 2 of the men’s Champions League Group Stage. After a glorious summer for the country’s national team – crowned with a World Championship gold (just three months after their World Cup triumph) – both CNAB and Sabadell suffered defeats – and both in rather embarrassing fashion.

Barceloneta rarely lose in their home pool – last season they won every match, including a shootout victory over FTC, which marked Fradi’s only defeat of the entire season.

This time, however, they went down against CN Marseille, a team they had beaten in the previous two seasons. Not now, though, as the French side enjoyed a fantastic evening, storming to a 5-9 lead late in the third period.

CNAB showed some quality to come back to 11-11 in the fourth, but Thomas Vernoux’s powerful strike sealed the win for Marseille – a satisfying form of redemption for the French side after their devastating 9-19 thrashing by CNAB in the bronze medal match of the Final Four in June.

The other Spanish participants, Sabadell, crashed in Hannover. The Germans had lost all six of their matches last season (one in a shootout) and later bowed out of the Euro Cup Eight Finals with a loss and a draw against Brescia. Practically, they didn’t win a single game on the European stage last year.

Facing Sabadell didn’t seem to promise a breakthrough, especially after their heavy 9-20 defeat in Marseille on Day 1. But the Germans had other ideas. After trailing Sabadell for three and a half quarters, they finally took the lead with 1:43 remaining – their first since going up 1-0. And they never gave it away.

In fact, a blistering 4-0 run in the last three minutes secured a well-deserved victory. Sabadell now need to reassess their game management, they had been 9-7 up against CNAB on the opening day before collapsing to a 0-7 run, and now this 0-4 sequence has dented their hopes of advancing to the next round.

At the same time, Waspo can be proud to have returned to winning ways on the European stage, especially considering they couldn’t even overcome their Romanian rivals last season in their group – Steaua and Oradea – a task that seemed far easier than beating Sabadell.

2. The two Croatian v Serbian duels on day two ended with a “national tie” 1-1. While Novi Beograd downed Jadran in Split, Mladost managed to take the upper hand against Radnicki.

The match in Split was another fine example of how ‘fewer sometimes means more.’ While the Croatians took a shot with whatever they could grab, as the good old saying goes in water polo, the Belgrade players were far more effective despite making 16 fewer attempts.

The total number of shots stood at 41-25, on target, it was 20-15 – and the scoreboard showed 7-10 at the end.

Goaltending proved crucial. While seasoned veteran Marko Bijac delivered five saves, young Milan Glusac posted 13. He outsmarted Jadran’s top marksmen, as Dusan Matkovic finished with 1/7, Zvonimir Butic with 1/8, and Loren Fatovic with 0/5. That’s 2-for-20 in total – not the way Jadran can expect to win Champions League matches.

The game in Zagreb was different. It turned into a load-and-shoot contest with 32 goals scored in total. Once again, Radnicki’s defensive weaknesses were spectacularly exposed – they conceded 16 against Vasas and now 17 against Mladost.

Serbian teams usually do better than that, but Radnicki still need time to fine-tune the team after adding several new players.

Their individual scoring skills have never been in question (they hit 17 on Day 1, now 15), they just need to get their defensive system working.

However, they don’t have much time for that – with Olympiacos also in this group, Radnicki cannot afford another defeat if they want to advance.

3. Olympiacos claimed all three points in Budapest with unexpected ease against Vasas, winning by a 10-goal margin 5-15. The Hungarians had scored 16 against Radnicki in Kragujevac on Day 1 – this week they were limited to just five goals, which is quite astonishing, especially in this new water polo played on a 25m field.

Singling out one reason never tells the whole story, still, there is one statistic that truly stands out – Emmanouil Zerdevas’ performance in the Olympiacos goal. He recorded 17 saves from 22 shots for a 77.3% save rate, one of the best goalkeeping efforts in recent years.

Zerdevas’ magic neutralised Vasas’ most lethal weapons. In Kragujevac two weeks earlier, Tamas Gyarfas, Peter Szalai, and Bence Batori had combined for 11 goals. This time, the trio failed to score from 11 attempts in total.

4. Ferencvaros were a weak team that had just avoided relegation in the previous season, when they suffered their worst-ever defeat in the Hungarian league – a 17-6 massacre in Eger. This happened on 10 December 2014.

Eleven years on, Fradi are the undisputed kings of Europe, winners of the last two editions of the Champions League, a team with a 90-2 win-loss ratio over the past two seasons and already on an 11-0 run in the current one.

Still, FTC conceded 17 goals again, this time in Brescia, which is somewhat extraordinary despite their comfortable 21-17 victory.

Coach Balazs Nyeki attributed this partly to the extraordinary atmosphere the locals usually create in their pool, which boosts the Italians’ morale and puts pressure on both the opposing side and the officials.

He praised both his players and the home team, which is in a reshaping process, noting that Brescia never tired of chasing the favourites – even though Fradi opened the match with a 0-5 blast.

Brescia managed to penetrate the Magyars’ defence, but the visitors’ class ultimately prevailed as they withstood the pressure in the most professional way.

5. Primorac Kotor caused one of the big upsets in the qualifications by claiming a shootout win against Novi Beograd in Belgrade, which landed them in a seemingly easier group compared to the one NBG have to deal with.

But the Montenegrins have so far failed to collect the rewards for that fine victory. They were one shot away from opening their Group Stage campaign with a win against Brescia.

After missing that chance, they conceded a late goal, and the game was gone. Still, losing to Italy’s No. 2 team is not the end of the world.

So they travelled to Oradea, the least dangerous team in Group C – on paper. In reality, the Romanians produced a brilliant performance, outclassing Primorac in every aspect and handing them a devastating 14-7 defeat.

This lifted Oradea into the position of the main challengers to Brescia for the runners-up spot behind FTC – while the Montenegrins now need a miracle, not to qualify, but to avoid finishing last.

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Gergely Csurka for European Aquatics

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