Twenty national teams representing the five continents are ready to compete in the 2019 edition of the FINA World Men’s Junior Water Polo Championships, to take place in Kuwait City (KUW) from December 12-20. Four groups of five squads each will play the preliminaries of the tournament until December 16, followed by three days of classification games, and then finals on December 20.
The groups are composed as follows:
GROUP A: Serbia, Japan, South Africa, Croatia, China
GROUP B: Russia, Canada, Spain, Hungary, Egypt
GROUP C: Montenegro, Kuwait, United States, Italy, Iran
GROUP D: Brazil, Uzbekistan, Greece, Australia, New Zealand
Italy is the leading team in the history of these Championships, having won five titles and taken home two silver and two bronze medals. Only Hungary has more podium presences - three gold, four silver and six bronze.
In the last edition of the championships, held in 2017 in Belgrade (SRB), the medallists were Greece (gold), Croatia (silver) and Serbia (bronze).
The first day of competition in Kuwait includes the following matches on December 12: South Africa vs Croatia; Japan vs China; Spain vs Hungary; Canada vs Egypt; Kuwait vs Iran; Greece vs Australia; Uzbekistan vs New Zealand; United States vs Italy.