Men's Water Polo LEN European Championship 2022 Road to Paris 2024

[Vektor 3,195]

Thankfully our men's team didn't disappoint this time. The semis will likely be...

 

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[Makedonas 1,568]

No surprise we lost to Spain in QF. We are missing too many important players here to do something special. Quite a pity after medals at the last two major events (Olympics and World Championships) but oh well.

[Vektor 3,195]

Nicely done, Hungarian water polo really needed this after the disastrous WCh.  

[lapaj 306]

Surprise! Sweet surprise!

[Gianlu33 3,569]

Congrats to the refeer that decide to be the superstar of the match. 

[phelps 6,740]

just like to know who has given a ref licence to Butnikovic...it's all Summer long that he's just doing damages left and right...

 

tonight he's really shown his best stuff...

 

I wonder if we have enough men left to play the bronze medal match after tonight's shameful butchery by the refs and the jury officials...

 

by the way, those who know things from the inside already noticed that just after the world champs the refereeing standard changed, going back to the old bad attitude of allowing dirty, heavy play and instigations and managing exclusions and red cards with no sense at all...

[prso1000 536]

Sure there were few decision which can be discussed. But it is clear that actually Italy is currently playing the dirtiest waterpolo of all nations

 

just look at the number of exclusion before semis even  😉

[phelps 6,740]

4 hours ago, prso1000 said:

Sure there were few decision which can be discussed. But it is clear that actually Italy is currently playing the dirtiest waterpolo of all nations

 

just look at the number of exclusion before semis even  😉

actually, Italy is the most penalized team only because of the Balkan refs mafia 

and I'm sure it will get worse and worse unless someone less compromised than the current managers would eventually take over as the leader of the FINA technical commission and send some refs where they deserve to go (home, to be polite)...

 

"regular" 20 secs exclusion don't count that much to say someone is playing dirty or not, it's just the style of defense (if you play press zone all the time and have to cope with centers of the opposing teams that are twice yours in size, it's obvious that you get a lot of exclusions against you)...

 

I only agree that experienced players like Renzuto (but also younger players -in terms of international games played- like Bruni) shouldn't get involved in stupid reaction fouls that lead to brutality exclusion and consequential disqualification for the following matches...

but they didn't start anything, they were just stupid to get caught reacting to other players' dirty plays...

 

however, what Butnikovic did yesterday (and just the fact that he was designated to ref that match, after the prologue he had against us in the prep tournament in Cagliari a couple of weeks ago) is just sh*t, pure sh*t...

even forgetting for a while that he acted like an idiot for the whole game (and against the game of waterpolo, not against a team in particular), the fact that he decided the final outcome of the match with 1 single wrong (but wrong isn't enough, I'm sure he was totally in bad faith) call, it's unacceptable under any circumstance and from any point of view...

 

he shouldn't be an international ref anymore   meanwhile I'm pretty sure he will officiate again, maybe even the bronze medal match tomorrow with Italy in the pool... 

 

p.s. the Croatian coach was interviewed by the Italian TV just at the end of the match and when he was asked to say something about the decisive action, he felt so ashamed that he started  saying that from his side he couldn't see anything at that distance therefore he couldn't have any opinion until he watched the action on TV...and this says a lot, I guess...

[dcro 10,179]

Here we go again with the Balkan mafia. Kind of ironic that Italy is so often apparently a victim in sports despite of its size and undoubtedly huge influence...

 

And despite, you know, the fact that the term mafia actually comes from there.

[phelps 6,740]

2 hours ago, dcro said:

Here we go again with the Balkan mafia. Kind of ironic that Italy is so often apparently a victim in sports despite of its size and undoubtedly huge influence...

 

And despite, you know, the fact that the term mafia actually comes from there.

size doesn't matter (in this case...), Italy doesn't have any infuence in any sport because our officials normally sell our Country's interests for their own personal's (the worst of them all in that discipline...Franco Carraro and Bruno Grandi )...

 

it's almost always been that way, unfortunately...most of them are just a bunch of greedy idiots...

 

p.s. it might well be that mafia is an Italian word and that some kind of practice started in a certain part of our Country, but as it often happens, the pupils have overtaken the master by quite some time (and big time, I'd say)...