The Hungarian team defeated the Croatian national team by 12:10 and won their group. However, only the two finalist water polo teams get an Olympic quota, so there is reason to fight.

The Hungarian water polo team won an important victory against the Croatians at the Olympic qualification world championship in Fukuoka on Wednesday morning. Ours won by 12:10, and with that they fought back for the defeat suffered by their neighbors in the final of last year's European Championship in Split. In the meantime, it turned out that the Japanese beat the Argentinian national team, which came in at the last moment instead of the Brazilians, against whom the Hungarian national team will almost certainly win on Friday, but regardless of this, the national team will be the group leader.

This means that our water polo team goes directly to the quarter-finals, where the winner of group A or B will be the opponent, i.e. according to the current situation, we will have to advance to the semi-finals and possibly the final against the USA or Italy, since the two best teams qualify for the Paris Olympics.

The Hungarian national team played excellently as a real team against the Croatians, nine of our players scored goals in the match

Details of the result: Hungary-Croatia 12-10 (3-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4)
scorers: Zalánki 3, Vámos 2, Német, Angyal, Á. Nagy, Sz. Jansik, Dé Varga, Fekete, Pohl 1-1, and Harkov, Bukic, Buric 2-2, Zuvela, Marinic-Kragic, Krzic, Vukicevic 1-1

However, the Croatians have been the best at the world championships recently: in 2017, they won 8-6 in the Margaret Island final, and in 2019, they beat the Hungarian men's polo players 10-7 in Gwangju for the bronze medal. However, the Hungarian national team won 15-11 in the quarter-finals of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. However, in the final of last year's European Championship in Croatia, our neighbors won again by 10-9. In the last match of the Hungarian and Croatian national teams, in the World Cup qualifier in Zagreb, we won again by 13-10.

According to the coverage of M4, the match started well, a goal was scored right from our first attack, through Zalánki. However, the Croatians didn't manage to return the hit immediately, they couldn't even score a goal from their third advantage. The Croatian team already responded to the goal of Márton Vámos, but at the end of the quarter we scored again through German Toni. In the second quarter, the Hungarian team defended well, the Croatians could not even score a goal until half way through the game. On the other hand, we did, Dániel Angyal scored a beautiful goal from a perfectly developed situation.

The Croatians asked for time, but thanks to Zalánki's block, they were still unable to capitalize on their man advantage. In the end, they closed with a field goal from Russian Kharkiv and a five-meter shot, but in the end we scored again, Ádám Nagy shot the top corner in the last seconds.

After that, unfortunately, it was not possible to score a goal due to the man advantage, but with the same number of players, Jansik scored. Although the Croatians did not respond immediately, Dénes Varga scored a goal from another forum. Vogel made some excellent saves, but unfortunately Harkov came in again and they converted their one man advantage into a goal. However, the end of the quarter was again closed by the Hungarian team with a goal, with Gergő Fekete's snap, the score was 8:6 before the final eight minutes.

We started the last quarter with a goal scored by Pohl from the man advantage, and then Vámos scored again from a turnover, practically deciding the match. The Croatians came within a goal twice more, but Zalánki answered both times, setting the final score with the second.

Featured image: MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák