Belgrade 2026: European Water Polo Championships Day 4 match previews

Men’s European Water Polo Championships, Belgrade 2026

Match previews, Day 4 – Tuesday 13 January (local times shown)

Group B

12:45 Georgia v Croatia

• Georgia couldn’t do much to stop Greece in the first round of games and they face another difficult challenge when they clash with Croatia, who also enjoyed some easy cruising against Slovakia. In this group, Day 3 will be crucial for all the sides, as the top spot and third place will be at stake.

• Croatia hold a 6-0 lead in their head-to-head record with Georgia. While the matches were mostly lopsided, their very last one a year ago in Otopeni, at the Division One tournament in the World Cup offered unexpected excitement before the favourites prevailed 13-11.

• Earlier, there were never any doubts: 13-6 (2013, Euro Qualifiers), 17-3 (2016, preps), 15-6 (2021, Olympics), 13-7 (2022, Worlds), 15-5 (2022, Europeans).

• Fun fact: Players from the former Yugoslavia are well represented in the Georgian national team. They have a Serbian legion of Dusan Vasic, Jovan Saric and Veljko Tankosic, a Montenegrin, Stefan Pjesivac – and now they also have a Croatian on their roster, Andrija Vlahovic. For sure, almost half of the team will pretty much understand what the Croatian players try to communicate among themselves.

Group B

15:15 Slovenia v Greece

• Another lopsided contest is on the horizon as Slovenia, blown away by the Croats two days ago, take on the World Championship bronze medallists, Greece.

• This is going to be the first-ever clash between the two sides.

• Fun fact: Well, it’s less fun for Slovenia, but it’s still true that they could only win one match out of 15 across the last three editions – a crossover game against Malta two years ago, which removed them from the bottom rank they had been dropped to, both in 2006 and in 2022.

Group D

18:00 Slovakia v Italy

• Italy have been favoured by the draw as they are the only side among the Big Seven that doesn’t have to face another medal favourite in the group stage, only underdogs. After beating Türkiye with ease on Sunday, another – on paper at least – easy test is coming for the Settebello.

• Apart from a surprisingly close World League qualifier back in 2014, Italy have never had any headaches while facing the Slovaks. In that tricky 2014 match, they prevailed 14-13, but their two most recent encounters ended in routs – another World League qualifier saw a 22-3 defeat, while at the 2022 Europeans, Italy won 21-9.

• Fun fact: Italy’s head coach Alessandro Campagna’s first major tournament in his role was a European Championships, 25 years ago in Budapest, where he led the Settebello to a silver medal right away. The legendary coach had a seven-year spell at the helm of the Greek national team before he was reappointed to lead Italy once again. In the current field, no other coach has such tremendous experience as Campagna – for him, this is the 13th straight edition of the Europeans in the role of a head coach.

Group D

20:30 Romania v Türkiye

• Romania came up with a convincing performance against Slovakia on Sunday and another win would secure them at least three poins in the next round.

• History is on Romania’s side, as they are 7-0 up in head-to-head in the past 15 years. After a series of World League qualification matches, they finally met at the Europeans too, in 2020, but the outcome was the same as in the previous games, Romania thrashed the Turks 20-3.

• Fun fact: Again, less fun for the Turks, as they have the worst cumulative goal-difference in the all-time ranks of the Europeans – currently it’s –477 (258 goals scored, 704 conceded).

Watch all the action live from Belgrade on Eurovision Sport

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Gergely Csurka for European Aquatics

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