September 2023

Group D: Zodiac CNA Barceloneta (ESP) v Spandau 04 Berlin GER) 16-6 The slightly reshaped Spanish champion switched to a rumbling mood right at the beginning and stormed to a 4-0 lead, Spandau could open its account only after six and a half minutes. They added another one for 4-2 early in the second, only to concede a flurry of goals in the following phase. Two from action came in 51 seconds, then Felipe Perrone delivered his trademark counter-attack goal for a 7-2 halftime lead. The third period was even more devastating, Barceloneta went on scoring five more, all from the action – they didn’t even need extras, while denied three German 6 on 5 and led 12-2 before the last break. When Spandau could score next, it was already in the fourth period to halt Barceloneta’s run at 9-0 and it came exactly after 15 minutes. To have a better-looking scoreline, they could add three connecting goals after 15-3, still, the difference was sky and earth between the two sides. How the coaches saw it Elvis Fatovic, coach, Barceloneta “The most important is the win. It was not as easy – Spandau changed a lot of players, so we couldn’t analyse them much and what we had wasn’t relevant as now they missed a couple of injured players. So we based our tactics on our performance and I should say that our defence was really good, apart from the last four minutes. There the level was dropped, but that’s somewhat understandable. And we have to improve our extra.” Athanasios Kechagias, coach, Spandau “First of all, congratulations to Barceloneta, they were much better, they had a better pace during the whole game. We should see what we could learn from this match, what we can improve, one thing I already saw is that we have to work a lot on our man-down.”

Group D: CN Marseille (FRA) v Vouliagmeni GRE) 15-13 Thomas Vernoux was on fire right from the beginning, for sure – he scored the first four goals for Marseille, all in the opening period. He started off with a man-up, followed by three fine action goals. However, there was another player geared up similarly, Efstathios Kalogeropoulos in the opposite camp, who scored three for Vouliagmeni, two from action, and one from a 6 on 5, so it stood 4-3 after eight minutes. Marseille had a fine spell early in the second to go 6-3 up, soon Vernoux hit his fifth for 7-4 but the Greeks didn’t let it go and Nemanja Ubovic netted a nice action goal for 7-5. Vouliagmeni could have cut the gap to a single goal, but Dejan Lazovic came up with a great penalty stop with 1:34 to go. And that proved to be crucial as right from the first possession in the third Andrija Prlainovic sent the ball home in a 6 on 5 to make it 8-5 – instead of 7-6. Still, the Greeks tried to stay on board, killed a man down, then Nikolaos Kourouvanis proved that there was still life in the centre-position after Dimitrios Nikolaidis left (he joined Olympiacos for this season), and soon Nikolais Papasifakis also netted one from there for 9-7. But their defence didn’t click, and conceded three more in this period letting Marseille go 12-8 up, so the writing was already on the wall before the final period. And even though the Greeks pulled one back early in the fourth and later on, Marseille could always reply from man-ups thus maintaining the four-goal gap. With 2:28 to go Vernoux scored his 6th for 15-11 and that put an end to the contest – though Vouliagmeni could add two more, Marseille’s opening win was never in danger. How the coaches saw it Milos Scepanovic, coach, Marseille “There was a lot of tension in the game. We had control from the beginning, and we responded well to Vouliagmeni’s challenge. I think we could have made an even better result tonight, but Vouliagmeni is also a great team so we have to be satisfied with the three points we got.” Vladimir Vujasinovic, coach, Vouliagmeni “We played a good game and we had a good result. In this group, anybody can beat anybody, especially at home, so we have to be ready for our home matches. We just need to keep going, we have a lot of young kids in the team, so we can improve a lot as we play more and more matches at this level.”

Group C: FTC-Telekom (HUN) v Jadran Herceg Novi (MNE) 9-7 FTC fielded a kind of ‘all-in’ team: seven world champions and each of their five foreign aces. Since in the Hungarian league only three can enter for a game, this was also a first-ever occasion and that left its mark on the first half – the home side barely showed unit qualities, rather relied on individual skills. And the Montenegrins turned that to their own favour, with some fine defending and their goalie Darko Durovic’s superb performance they shut out FTC for the entire first period and managed to score two goals in the last minute, both in the very last second of the possession for a 0-2 lead. Edoardo di Somma broke the ice after little less than ten minutes, but Danilo Radovic was on target from a 6 on 5. Adam Nagy netted one from action, the Magyars denied two man-downs, but they were unable to capitalise on that, missed another extra, and conceded one 32 seconds from time so the scoreboard showed a somewhat stunning 2-4 at halftime. However, the favourites raised the level of their game in the third and produced a 3-0 run to show something of their capabilities. Denes Varga’s wrist shot with 3:25 to go was another teaser from the class he represents and that gave the lead to the hosts for the first time. They had a man-up to double their lead but wasted it and Ivan Nagaev blasted a fantastic one from the distance to level the score. Stylianos Argyropoulos hit one from the centre, then Danilo Radovic equalised again, still, FTC had the last laugh, though it wasn’t a clean play even in a 6 on 4, Dusan Mandic could bury only the second attempt for 7-6. Matija Sladovic equalised right away in the fourth to keep up the tensions. And the Hungarians missed another man-up, but di Somma made a great steal in seconds and the re-counter ended in a goal, by Gergo Fekete. With 4:01 to go, Varga came up with another great action goal to make it 9-7 and that was decisive. Indeed, the Montenegrins didn’t have much left in the tank, they were unable to beat Soma Vogel in the goal (couldn’t score in the last 7:27 minutes) so FTC could afford to miss a penalty – it was one of the 14 saves Darko Durovic delivered in the match, but it was not enough to bag a point or points. At the same time, the shooting ratio showed the contrasting halves for Ferencvaros: they were 2 for 17 in the first and 7 for 16 in the second. How the coaches saw it Balazs Nyeki, FTC “We expected something like this, a very difficult match. We didn’t play well, especially in man-up – indeed it was terrible. We need to work on that and I’m sure we’ll improve our game for sure.” Petar Radanovic, coach, Jadran “I think we played well in the first half, then Ferencvaros disturbed us with three goals, and we didn’t react on that well. We missed our chances, this was the main reason for our defeat.”

Group A: Novi Beograd (SRB) v Steaua Bucharest (ROU) 19-7 Returning to the big stage after four years, Steaua might have dreamt of a bit easier start than a visit to the home of Novi Beograd, runner-up in the last two editions. Indeed, the young Romanian team was no match for the Serbian super squad which put them under pressure right from the beginning. Though Steaua could open the scoring, NBG hit back with three goals in 58 seconds, then, after 3-2, again a triple, this time in 65 seconds – the 6-2 opening period set the tone, for sure. Five more followed till the middle break so the Serbs led 11-4 at halftime. The third was a bit more balanced but that fine battling also worn out the Romanians who completely ran out of gas for the fourth where NBG staged a 5-0 run and almost broke the 20-goal barrier. Stats don’t lie – the total number of shots (34-19) and those on target (29-14) demonstrated the huge difference between the sides and that was also mirrored by the final result. Nikola Jaksic led the charge for NBG with 6 goals from as many attempts. How the coaches saw it Zivko Gocic, coach, NBG “It was a very good game from my team, we played aggressively from the very beginning till the last minute. We paid respect to the team of Steaua and we demonstrated that by playing as hard as we could. It was a great presentation from my players in our first big match of the season.” Bogdan Rath, coach, Steaua “It was a very tough game. Everyone knows the quality of Novi Belgrade, while our one is a very young team, all we need to do is try to become better and better by each match we play in the Champions League.”

Group B: Pro Recco (ITA) v WPC Dinamo Tbilisi (GEO) 15-6 The schedule offered Recco an easy start in the competition and the title-holders used that opportunity to entertain their fans, especially in the first half as they reached double digits in two quarters. Dinamo put up a good fight at the beginning but conceded three in a row after 2-2 and Recco repeated the 5-2 run in the second to lead 10-4 at halftime. There were a couple of spectacular goals, especially their new Greek centre-forward Konstantin Kakaris showed some classy moves, his third goal was something from the old school, a magnificent tipping. Recco slowed down somewhat for the second half, and netted only five after the big break, two of those came in the last minute – still, the young fans were overjoyed to watch the Italian giant doing a clean job. How the coaches saw it: Sandro Sukno, coach, Recco “I’m satisfied with the result, though the quality of our performance wasn’t on the highest level. That is normal now, we are still at the start of the season. We keep on preparing for our next match which is a really important one, in Dubrovnik.” Dejan Stanojevic, coach, Dinamo “During the game, you have the emotions but at the end, after calming down, you need to see the difference between the teams, the level of the individual quality, Recco has a fantastic team with eleven similarly great players. Of course, we will analyse our mistakes, I think we lost many scoring chances by bad passing, but it is not easy to play against a team like Recco. In this group, against three amazing teams, we cannot dream of much success, all we have to do is to try better and better in every match.”

Group B: Olympiacos Piraeus (GRE) v Jug Adriatic Osiguranje (CRO) 12-12, pen: 4-3 What a game to start the Group Stage off with! The big clash of the round offered everything water polo and the Champions League are loved for. Jug took a flying start, gained a 0-2 lead, and kept the hosts scoreless for more than four minutes. Then Alexandros Papanastasiou – spending a couple of seasons in Dubrovnik before returning home – managed to net one from the centre, then Rino Buric replied to it with a classic backhander for 1-3. The Greeks hit the post twice from their man-up while Franko Lazic made it 1-4 from action just four seconds before the first break. And Jug went on stunning the Greeks, finding the way to score from time to time. After 3-5, they added three connecting action goals for 3-8 so it was anything but promising from Olympiacos’ perspective. Ioannis Fountoulis pulled one back 26 seconds from time, but they still trailed 4-8 at halftime. Luka Loncar hit the post during the Greeks’ first man-up opportunity against his compatriots and soon Goran Grgurevic reset the five-goal gap. Olympiacos had a better spell, but veteran leftie Maro Jokovic seemed to kill their momentum while burying a 6 on 5 for 6-10, four minutes into the third. What followed perhaps no one saw coming. Netting one in a man-up by Ioannis Fountoulis was in the cards – then a steal, an exclusion, and a one-on-one goal from Nikolaos Gkillas 14 seconds later halved the distance and set the pool on fire. Another 32 seconds gone and another lost ball from the Croats, and Fountoulis hit another one from an extra to make it 9-10 – within 1:44 minutes Olympiacos was very much back in the match. What’s more, they killed a man-down and Fountoulis equalised from another 6 on 5 (they converted the last four) for 10-10, with 0:04 on the clock. And Fountoulis carried on, buried a penalty to put his team ahead for the first time in the game. Again, it was Jokovic who lifted the Croats and halted his side’s disastrous run and scored after five minutes, after conceding five in a row. As ‘money time’ was commencing, tensions started to grow, mirrored by the less precise finishes. Soon came the first missed Greek man-up and Rino Buric blasted an astonishing one from 8m to retake the lead at 11-12 with 3:21 to go. The Greeks replied immediately, Papanastasiou put away a 6 on 5 – then Jug missed two shots in a man-up but Marton Vamos was also denied by a blocking hand 1:18min from time – so the decision came down to the penalties, according to the new regulations in place for tied matches. Toni Popadic opened with a save but in the fourth round Marko Zuvela hit the post, then Marko Bijac, who had been substituted at halftime but returned for the shootout after three rounds, made a great save. Dimitrios Nikolaidis should have won it for the Greeks but hit the post, then Bijac denied US star Hanne Daube, and Konstantinos Genidounias, who had missed his first attempt, ended the contest with a fierce shot to secure two points for Olympiacos. How the coaches saw it: Hrvoje Koljanin, coach, Olympiacos “I was a bit afraid as we didn’t have any tough game until now and that put us under some stress. The game showed why I was right – Jug came from a series of tough official matches, they have a strong roster and were much more ready for this match. Then in the third period, when they were leading by five goals, our guys understood they didn’t have anything to lose anymore, and started playing more aggressively and that helped. It is very important that we won in the end – this is the only thing that matters. I think we’ll improve game by game from now on. Vjekoslav Kobescak, coach, Jug “It was a great game, we started it really well then in the third period we lost a few balls early in the outside positions and allowed Olympiacos to score quick and cheap goals to come back. Well, it’s not easy to keep that level we had from the beginning for four periods against Olympiacos – so it was good that we could have a draw at the end. I’m a little bit satisfied but disappointed too at the same time – two or three points here would have meant an excellent start – now I should say it’s just OK.”

Croatia’s Jug Dubrovnik and Italy’s AN Brescia secured their respective spots in the Champions League – both teams have been regular Final Eight participants, so their qualification is no surprise and indeed they were dominant in all their matches in the weekend. Crvena Zvezda (SRB), AN Brescia (ITA), Vouliagmeni NC (GRE) and Jug Adriatic Osiguranje (CRO) are the four qualifiers for the Champions League this season. Serbia’s Zvezda will join Group B to stage a series of Balkan classics against the two famous Jadrans, Split of Croatia and Herceg Novi of Montenegro – add Hungarian champion FTC-Telekom and everyone can expect a series of thrilling matches. Brescia will clash with the runner-up of the last two editions Novi Beograd and may have a fine chance to make the cut as Sabadell and Steaua are the other two rivals in this group. Last season’s sensation Vouliagmeni will face a tremendous challenge to reach the quarter-final stage as Barceloneta – which beat the Greeks for the bronze medal in Belgrade – and Marseille will send a reinforced line-up to the pool. Last but not least, Jug will play in the ‘group of death’ as Group B will see three champions from recent years gunning for the two qualifying berths. Victor in the last three seasons, Pro Recco, 2018 champion Olympiacos and four-time winner Jug will surely produce a series of thrillers. (See the final composition of the Champions League Group Stage below.) Group A (Hannover) CN Barcelona (ESP) v Apollon Smyrnis (GRE) 12-11, Waspo 98 Hannover (GER) v EPS Honved (HUN) 13-12 Final rankings: 1. Crvena Zvezda 12 points, 2. Barcelona 9, 4. Hannover 6, 4. Apollon 3, 5. Honved 0 With Crvena Zvezda having stolen the show with four brilliant wins, the last day was about prestige and pride for the other four participants. Both encounters produced fine battles where a single goal decided the outcome. Barcelona built a three-goal lead a couple of times during the game, but the Greeks always came back, however, in the fourth they could score their last goal 21 seconds from time, so they had no chance to equalise. Host Hannover finally could clinch a win in a match of twists and turns. The fourth period was really dramatic, Waspo went 10-8 up, Honved equalised, then the Germans took the lead once more, but the Hungarians replied with a double, however, the last twist came in the last minute as the home side managed to hit two actions goals, the winner by Niclas Schipper came with three seconds from time. Group B (Kragujevac) Primorac Kotor (MNE) v ASD Duisburg (GER) 16-10, Radnicki Kragujevac (SRB) v AN Brescia (ITA) 8-15 Final rankings: 1. Brescia 12, 2. Radnicki 8, 3. Noisy Le Sec 6, 4. Primorac 4, 5. Duisburg 0 A kind of final was played between Radnicki and Brescia – but it was never an equal match. The Italians quickly built a 1-4 lead and rolled on in the second period to go 3-8 up by halftime, they could even afford missing a penalty. The Serbs tried desperately but Brescia was simply too good – Radnicki came back to 5-9 only to concede four more goals in three minutes late in the third for 5-13, so the excitements were gone before the last period. Group C (Oradea) CC Ortigia (ITA) v Primorje Erste Bank Rijeka (CRO) 16-14, CSM Oradea (ROU) v Vouliagmeni NC (GRE) 5-14 Final rankings: 1. Vouliagmeni 9, 2. Ortigia 6, 3. Primorje 3, 4. Oradea 0 Vouliagmeni already secured the first place after two days, but they added a third win against host Oradea on the last day. The two middle periods were the key when the Greeks shut out the Romanians for 14 minutes and staged a 7-1 run. The other match produced a 30-goal epic, Ortigia outlasted Primorje at the end. Francesco Cassia was on fire, he ended the game with 7 goals, netted the last four for his team after 12-12. Group D (Dubrovnik) Dinamo Bucharest (ROU) v EN Tourcoing (FRA) 8-14, Jug Adriatic Osiguranje Dubrovnik (CRO) v Genesys-OSC Budapest (HUN) 14-10 Standings: 1. Jug 9, 2. Tourcoing 6, 3. OSC 3, 4. Dinamo 0 When Tourcoing beat Dinamo as expected in the first game, Jug players could already feel themselves on safe waters as it was hard to see OSC beating them by six or seven goals – that would have been the only way the Croats bowing out. It never happened, OSC could go ahead twice in the first period, then Jug staged another perfect storm in the second period, like on Saturday against Tourcoing. They had a 4-0 run in the second, all in all they shut OSC out for 10:28 minutes as they rallied to a 9-3 lead and never looked back. Champions League – Group Stage Group A VK Novi Beograd (SRB), Astralpool Sabadell (ESP), CSA Steaua Bucharest (ROU), AN Brescia (ITA) Group B Pro Recco (ITA), Olympiacos Piraeus (GRE), WPC Dinamo Tbilisi (GEO), Jug Adriatic Osiguranje Dubrovnik (CRO) Group C FTC-Telekom (HUN), VK Jadran Split (CRO), PVK Jadran Herceg Novi (MNE), Crvena Zvezda (SRB) Group D Zodiac CNA Barceloneta (ESP), CN Marseille (FRA), Spandau 04 (GER), Vouliagmeni NC (GRE) Croatia’s Jug Dubrovnik and Italy’s AN Brescia secured their respective spots in the Champions League – both teams have been regular Final Eight participants, so their qualification is no surprise and indeed they were dominant in all their matches in the weekend. Crvena Zvezda (SRB), AN Brescia (ITA), Vouliagmeni NC (GRE) and Jug Adriatic Osiguranje (CRO) are the four qualifiers for the Champions League this season. Serbia’s Zvezda will join Group B to stage a series of Balkan classics against the two famous Jadrans, Split of Croatia and Herceg Novi of Montenegro – add Hungarian champion FTC-Telekom and everyone can expect a series of thrilling matches. Brescia will clash with the runner-up of the last two editions Novi Beograd and may have a fine chance to make the cut as Sabadell and Steaua are