The Italians triumphed with confidence mainly thanks to Francesco Di Fulvio, who scored four goals, and their goalkeeper, Marco Del Lungo, who defended with 55 percent efficiency. The two teams met in the last four at the previous World Cup, then the Italians won 12-10 against the Hungarians, who were practically without the injured Dénes Varga - one of the world's best at the time only spent a few minutes in the water due to a broken finger - and in the end they didn't even stop to the gold medal. Last year at the Tokyo Olympics, the teams played to a 5-5 draw in the group stage.
Tamás Märcz: everyone is disappointed
"Of course everyone, including me, is disappointed. I knew it would be a very difficult match, but I trusted that the routine and quality of the players could bring the desired result," concluded the captain of the defending European champion and Olympic bronze medalist team.
"We started as we had to, we were aware that there would be many judgments on both sides, and we will have to get as much as possible out of them. However, the indisciplines came, we didn't go to the man we should have and we got too many action goals that didn't fit. It hurts that we couldn't move the match in the direction where it depends on man-advantage and man-disadvantage situations"
said Tamás Märcz.
The captain noted that there were a lot of bad passes and bad choices, they didn't choose the situations that could have led to a result, even though there were plenty of opportunities.
Team captain Dénes Varga talked about how he was surprised that they led at the beginning, but at the same time he was already disappointed that in the continuation they only chased their defending world champion rivals:
"I thought we would be better for this game, both physically and mentally. I'm not satisfied with my own performance either, I should look back at the situations when I might have passed instead of shooting, or when I shot, what kind of situation was that. It's all a sign that a player is insecure."
Gergő Zalánki, who won the Champions League with the Italian Pro Recco a few weeks ago, had a similar opinion: "We made a lot of mistakes, there were a couple of defensive lapses that they took advantage of, and when we should have closed ourselves off, we were not patient, we tried to solve the situations individually, but they as a team they got the better of us, I congratulate them."
The Hungarians are 5-8. will continue their performance for place, their first match will be played against the United States team on Friday.
MTI
Photo: Hungarian players played in the quarterfinals of the men's water polo tournament of the World Water Championships in the match between Hungary and Italy at the Alfréd Hajós National Sports Pool in Margitsziget on June 29, 2022.
MTI/Tibor Illyés
