FINA men Water Polo World Cup 2019 final Italy - Spain
Final of water polo men World Cup in South Korea will be on Saturday at 12:30 (Central European Time). Finalists are Italy and Spain. Before them in the game for 3rd place Croatia will face Hungary. This is first time since 2003 that non of ex Yugoslavia countries will play final game.
Italy beat Hungary 12:10 in semifinal on Thursday after good game. The best player was Di Fulvio who netted three goals for Italy. Hungary conceded some strange easy goals in last quarter and was unable to come back in the game after. I think Hungarian goal keeper was not up to the task in last quarter.
In other semi final Spain defeated Croatia with 6:5 after great performance of goal keeper Dani Lopez. He practically enchanted his net with superb saves and Spain finished second quarter with 4:2. They increased lead to 6:2. Defending champions woke up to late and managed just to come to 6:5 with 14 seconds until the end. Croatian players and coach was unhappy after the game. Buslje said that it was Croatia's worst performance of the tournament as they were totally out of ideas in attack.
Both countries ensured their Tokyo Olympic games tournament, while Hungary and Croatia will need to try hard to reach final on next European Championship in Hungary because only final place will book two more tickets for Olympic games 2020 in Tokyo. It is hard to imagine that some of great Water Polo super powers like Hungary and Croatia can skip Olympic games next year.
Italy came to final after finishing 1st in group where they beat Germany 8:7, Japan 9:7 and Brasil 14:5. They did not play to well, but as Filip Filipovic said when Italians play not so good in group stage then they are the most dangerous because they are saving good form for elimination stage. He was right. They won Greece 7:6 and then Hungary 12:10.
Spain lost against Hungary 13:11, but won South Africa and New Zealand with 23:3. Their road to final was harder. They won Japan 17:5, then Serbia 12:9 and Croatia with 6:5. They took scalp from two big Water Polo super powers like World League winner Serbia and World Cup Champion Croatia. However I need to point out that Serbia came on this World Cup with young squad missing some big players like Filipovic and Prlainovic. Spain performances in those two games was superb and that is reason while I give them slight advantage in final game.