Water polo men lose to Serbians
The national men’s water polo team lost its quarterfinal clash at the World Championships in Melbourne, going down 8-3 to powerhouse Serbia, the world and European champion, in a game played yesterday. Greece will next meet Russia, a 13-3 loser to Croatia, tomorrow, seeking fifth place, at best, in the tournament. The four losing quarterfinalists will battle for fifth to eighth places. The two teams met in their opening game for the tournament with Greece emerging a 10-7 winner. In yesterday’s quarterfinal, Serbia outscored Greece in three of their quarterfinal’s four periods (1-2, 1-0, 0-3, 1-3) for the game’s 8-3 final score. Despite losing by a five-goal margin, Greece coach Sandro Sandro Campagna had particularly favorable words to say about his team’s first-half performance. «In the first half, we played the best water polo I’ve ever seen Greece play – high-quality, perfect, especially in defense. I’ve never seen the Serbs look so stressed with any opponent other than Hungary,» Campagna said. «We have to make a new beginning based on this [first-half] performance… but, then we offered gifts to the Serbs. In the beginning of the third period, we conceded two goals with no extra-man play. In these types of games, if all the goals have come from extra-man situations until a certain point in the game, then it’s bad for the psychology when you make mistakes and concede goals when the teams are equally numbered.»
