Men's Water Polo Tournament at the Summer Olympic Games 2020

[Makedonas 2,262]

Surprised how quiet it is in here.

 

Greece won Pool A! 

[LDOG 2,477]

Maybe I'm ignorant but looking at the group standings... I suppose Hungary and Italy were trying their very best to lose today? Or is Serbia not scary anymore?

[Makedonas 2,262]

13 minutes ago, LDOG said:

Maybe I'm ignorant but looking at the group standings... I suppose Hungary and Italy were trying their very best to lose today? Or is Serbia not scary anymore?

I'm not sure, Italy could've possibly finished first in the group if they won against Hungary (as I'm sure they didn't expect us to beat USA by such a big margin) and then played against Montenegro in the quarterfinals. Instead, we will be the ones to face MNE.

[Vektor 3,326]

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Upper half of the bracket is weaker. I am not sure if Greece will ever get another chance like this to be in the SF, Montenegro seems beatable this time. Our QF can go both ways because Croatia is all over the place in terms of their results so far, but my guess is that they are the favorites of that match, not us. 

 

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That's what I would guess, but three of these matches can go the other way, only Spain is securely in the SF, that QF should be an easy job against the Americans. 

[Makedonas 2,262]

14 minutes ago, Vektor said:

Upper half of the bracket is weaker. I am not sure if Greece will ever get another chance like this to be in the SF, Montenegro seems beatable this time. 

I am not either. We look good this year, however, we always choke and underachieve. We never win in quarterfinals so I would not be surprised if we lose...

[Makedonas 2,262]

If we beat Montenegro, it would be our second Olympic semifinal ever (we got 4th in 2004)

 

At the World Championships, we've finished top 8 each of our last 10 appearances, but only made four semifinals (2003, 2005, 2015, 2017) and won two bronze medals (2005 and 2015)

 

At the European Championships, we've had 13 top 8 finishes, but only two semifinals (1999 and 2016), and zero medals

 

 

 

We have underachieved so much. Most of our players play for Olympiacos who won the Champions League for 2017-18 and got runner-up in 2018-19. We also have Fountoulis who played for Ferencvaros this year (runner-up) and Vlachopoulos for Brescia (third place). Nikolaidis (who didn't get called up) also plays for Brescia. And Papanastasiou plays for Jug Dubrovnik (5th place).

 

We also have a lot of good young players, we won gold at four recent championships (2017 World U20, 2018 World U18, 2018 Euro U19, 2019 World U20). Some guys like Papanastasiou, Gkiouvetsis, Skoumpakis are here in Tokyo and were on some of those teams. I think Zerdevas (our main goalkeeper) too.

 

I really think we have a very good team this year and this is a big chance to make SF and get a medal. I hope we don't mess it up. There is no reason why we should not be contending for medals at every major championships with the players we have!

 

 

[Makedonas 2,262]

  10-4 

 

So proud of our boys! Undefeated after six games 

 

This is the first semifinal at a big tournament (not counting World League) for our team since the 2017 World Championships

 

At the Olympics it is just our second semifinal ever in 16 appearances, now hopefully we can get our first medal.

[Gianlu33 6,007]

I think that for the 1st time since Los Angeles 1932 Italy will not be in semifinals in any team sport. A total failure.

 

[DaniSRB 899]

I thought Montenegro is the best this time of all ex yu teams

[DaniSRB 899]

3/3 in team sports