Belgrade 2026: Croatia, Italy, Greece and Romania dominate on second day of European Water Polo Championships

Croatia, Greece, Italy and Romania all produced powerful displays to get their campaigns off to the perfect start on day two of the men’s European Water Polo Championships in Belgrade. Italy started proceedings by sweeping Türkiye aside, before Romania, Croatia and Greece followed suit in similar fashion as they dismantled Slovakia, Slovenia and Georgia respectively.

Men’s 2026 European Water Polo Championships – Belgrade
Day 2, Sunday 11 January

Group B

Slovenia 4-20 Croatia
Greece 20-6 Georgia

Group D

Türkiye 8-19 Italy
Romania 16-8 Slovakia

Group D

Türkiye 8-19 Italy
(1-7, 2-4, 3-4, 2-4)

Italy kicked off their campaign with a comfortable victory over Türkiye. Indeed, it was comfortable by all means, as they crushed their rivals with a 1-7 blast in the opening quarter, then laid back a bit and expanded the gap with less intense play, netting four goals in each of the remaining three periods.

Tommaso Gianazza got the ball rolling for the Italians, hitting their first goal after just 35 seconds, then Kaan Oguzcan equalised, benefiting from a fortunate rebound.

Soon, the favourites switched to a devastating gear and staged a ruthless 0-9 attacking blitz.

In the first half, all the Italian goals came from action – they didn’t play a single six on five, as no exclusions were called against the Turks, something of a rarity in modern water polo.

Once Italy finally forced two man-ups in the second half of the third quarter, they netted back-to-back six-on-five goals, and added two more in the fourth.

Francesco Condemi led the scoring for the Italians, netting four, and all but two of his outfield teammates managed to score.

The Turks fought hard and managed to score from time to time, but in the end the margin was similar to their previous encounters, with Italy dominant again, this time winning by 11.

Group D

Romania 16-8 Slovakia
(5-3, 4-2, 2-0, 5-3)

These two sides didn’t hold back and produced an action-packed opening period. Samuel Balaz hit the first for Slovakia, but the Romanians replied with three in a row.

Matej Caraj buried another extra for the Slovaks, but then Alexandru Gheorghe netted two magnificent shots from the centre in a span of 50 seconds.

Lukas Seman added one more for Slovakia from a six-on-five, so the first quarter ended 5-3.

The Slovaks had two fine chances early in the second, but missed them both, and that came back to haunt them soon when Iosif-Darian Luncan finished off a counter, then Andrei-Radu-Ionut Neamtu put away an extra to extend Romania’s lead to 7-3.

Seman tipped in a man-up, but next came Gheorghe with another beauty from the centre, a classic backhander to maintain the four-goal gap.

Marek Tkac hit the Slovaks’ first action goal, but another fast counter restored the difference as Vlad-Luca Georgescu made no mistake at the end of a two-on-one.

In contrast, the Slovaks couldn’t do what had at least kept them in the game before, missing a six-on-five, so it stood at 9-5 at half-time.

The first minutes of the third proved decisive, as the Romanians added two more from action and later killed three more man-downs.

With the Slovaks’ offence looking to be weakening by the minute, the Romanians could afford to waste a couple of extras too, and with an 11-5 lead in hand, they were comfortably in the driving seat.

Luncan blasted two more in 78 seconds early in the fourth, before Marek Tkac ended Slovakia’s scoreless run after 11:50 minutes with a fine long-range shot.

The Romanians, however, kept on scoring, so the gap didn’t change significantly.

In the end, the Romanians sailed away with a convincing win, a huge step towards clinching a qualification spot in the top eight.

Group B

Slovenia 4-20 Croatia
(1-3, 1-5, 1-7, 1-5)

Croatia took a calm, if not sluggish, start as they built a moderate 1-3 lead in the first eight minutes. Their lethal weapon, feeding the ball to the 2m line in man-ups, didn’t work twice, and Marko Zuvela hit their third goal – from distance – only five seconds from time.

The break was enough for them to recognise this was far from a dream start, and the Croats opened the second quarter by scoring as many goals inside two minutes as they had in the entire opening period.

Loren Fatovic netted a man-up, then finished a counter, while Konstantin Kharkov fired one in from the perimeter between the two.

It slowed them down once more as they added only two more in the remaining six minutes before half-time, though this energy-saving mood was understandable as the Slovenians posed little or no threat up front.

At half-time, the Croats were 2-8 up, and it was clear the Slovenians were running out of even the little steam they had.

A double in 35 seconds set the tone for the third as the Croats, still far from switching into top gear, enjoyed more and more counter-attacks as their rivals failed to keep up the pace.

Five further goals in the third underlined that dominance, though head coach Ivica Tucak still found a couple of things to fume about, such as the five exclusions called against them.

The Croatian defence stood firm, however, killing all but one to limit the Slovenians to the same single goal they had conceded in each of the previous two quarters.

Three more quick strikes came early in the fourth, then two more in the final minutes, while the Slovenians netted their ‘usual’ one goal.

The Croats wrapped things up at 20, which was a fine warm-up before their big clash with the Greeks on Thursday (and they face Georgia before then on Tuesday).

Group B

Greece 20-6 Georgia
(3-0, 9-2, 3-2, 5-2)

Greece showed no sign of mercy in the first half against Georgia – they played hard in defence and made the most of their possessions in attack. This gave them a substantial 12-2 lead by half-time, a real blast.

In fact, Georgia also had a few chances, but many of their finishes, especially in six-on-fives, ended up hitting the frame of the goal.

They were close, but needed to have adjusted those shots by mere centimetres, and if they had, they would have narrowed the deficit a little.

By contrast, the Greeks – though they made some errors early on which limited their lead to 3-0 after the first period – soon started really rolling.

In the second quarter, they were simply unstoppable, scoring nine in eight minutes, which is by far the best effort in a single quarter at this event to date.

The Georgians didn’t have much joy apart from their first goal, which arrived 12:03 minutes into the game, at 8-0, from a six-on-four, and a penalty save soon after by their goalkeeper Irakli Razmadze was something else for them to cheer.

This proved to be only a temporary halt to the scoring machine, though – as after the miss from 5m, the Greeks forced an exclusion and Semir Spachits hammered the ball into the net.

After such a brilliant run, the Greeks’ concentration levels appeared to drop significantly. They didn’t push as hard in the third, adding three to the 12 goals they already had, while the Georgians doubled their tally with two sharp shots.

Greece geared up again in the fourth, although their coach, Theodoros Vlachos, had an outburst on the bench when the Georgians netted their second from a one-on-one counter.

This had an impact, however, as his players responded to his choice words by staging a 3-0 finish to tie the day’s scoring record with 20 goals.

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Gergely Csurka for European Aquatics

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