1. In the good old days, Savona had two magnificent runs in Europe’s top water polo club competition. They reached the final in 1992, but Jadran Split – who they faced home and away over two legs – beat them to the trophy, as the Croats won 21-10 on aggregate.
In 2006, they reached the Final Four, where Jug Dubrovnik edged them out by a fingernail, 9-8, in the semis and they then lost the bronze medal match.
Ever since, the Italians haven’t had much luck, as they’ve never reached the Group Stage in the newly-shaped Champions League – though they’ve had some fine seasons in the Euro Cup, winning in 2011 and 2012, and they were runners-up two years ago.
With Recco gone, they’ve inherited Italy’s wildcard spot and even though their opening clash wasn’t successful as they lost to Sabadell at home – in the following rounds they proved their quality. First they demolished Primorac in Kotor (12-18), then came the big bang, a 9-10 victory over Olympiacos.
In Piraeus, let us add – and this is a big thing. The pool of Olympiacos never promises much hope for visiting teams, even the mighty Recco found it hard to gain points there. Remember, Ferencvaros’ lonely loss in last season’s 41 matches – and still the only one till date – came in Piraeus in the Quarter-Final Round last spring.
2. The difference couldn’t have been any greater between the two matches played in the same pool, Komjadi in Budapest, against teams named Jadran this week. On Tuesday, FTC won by nine against Jadran Split, then 24 hours later, Vasas lost by eight to Jadran Herceg Novi.
The title-holders are absolutely like monsters in their own pool. Fradi have handed out two nine-goal defeats at home, to Dinamo, and now to the Croatians, and thrashed Radnicki by seven in Kragujevac.
On Day 3, after a balanced first half, they blew away Jadran Split 12-4 in the second, with a 6-0 rush in the third period (rather 8-0 with the two goals scored at the end of the second period). And they hit 18 against Marko Bijac, one of the best goalies in the world.
Croatian water polo gurus are still checking it, but so far they couldn’t find any match where Bijac conceded 18 goals in regular time…
3. If FTC-Telekom have been in formidable form since the season started, what should we say about Zodiac Barceloneta? While Fradi’s goal count stands at 46 in the Champions League, the Spaniards have already netted 53 – 17.6 per game.
They kicked off their campaign by setting the single-game scoring record for this season with 18 goals, against Vasas, only to better this on Day 3 against Marseille, where they scored 19 (and produced 16 in their away game in Herceg Novi).
For some reason, the great mix of international and French stars at Marseille haven’t shown much consistency with their defending. First, they conceded 11 at home, but managed to beat Jadran, then they received 13 against Vasas and lost, now came 19 more, despite bringing a top Montenegrin goalie, Petar Tesanovic, on board. Something isn’t quite clicking and they need to find out the reason why, or they may get into trouble.
4. Should Primorac and Steaua miss the cut at the end of the Group Stage and have to settle for the Euro Cup eight-finals, instead of playing in the CL Quarter-final Round, they would probably recall a couple of badly played man-ups in recent rounds.
Primorac led 11-12 and had a man-up in the last minutes in Piraeus on the opening day – but couldn’t score, Olympiacos equalised later and won in the shootout.
On Day 3, in their home match against Sabadell, the Montenegrins had a 6 on 5 at 11-11, with 1:23 on the clock, and after a time-out – they missed it and lost on penalties again.
Steaua have had even more nightmares. In two home matches, they’ve held a two-goal advantage, but couldn’t bag six points. Instead, they conceded two against Hannover in the last 40 seconds, with the last one with 0:01 on the clock, though they won the shootout – then again, were 13-11 up on Day 3 against Oradea, only to concede twice in the last 70 seconds, this time the equaliser came with 0:04 to go. Even more painfully, their home arch-rivals beat them in the shootout.
So, four points dropped by Primorac, three by Steaua, which at this level, they may find it really hard to recover from in the remaining three rounds.
5. It’s interesting to see how the Serbian sides fare – especially with freshly-crowned Olympic champions in their respective line-ups. On Day 3, both Novi Beograd and Radnicki gained three points, though neither win came easily – despite the expectations.
NBG scored five goals in the opening period and four in the last one – but only one in the middle two, so they had to take a bumpy road to down Hannover at the end. Still, it was a win, their third one, and now they enjoy a four-point advantage and need three more points to secure their spot in the next stage.
Radnicki almost had to deal with more embarrassment in Tbilisi. They had to come back from 5-1 down, but their experienced warriors, including Paris 2024 hero Nikola Jaksic, saved the day for them, so they are very much in the hunt to make the next round.
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