World Championship silver medallist Spain upset Olympic champion Serbia 13-12. Spain made most of the running and four times had two-goal advantages. Alberto Munarriz scored four goals, including the two go-ahead goals at midway through the final quarter. And in the final match of the day, Croatia swam away from Kazakhstan 23-7 after leading 10-4 at halftime. Progress points: Group A: ITA 2, GRE 2, USA 2, HUN 0, JPN 0, RSA 0. Group B: CRO 2, MNE 2, ESP 2, SRB 0, AUS 0, KAZ 0.
Olympic champion Serbia stumbled at the first hurdle, losing 13-12 to Spain in their Group B encounter.
As Serbian head coach Dejan Savic said after the match, Spain has lifted a level in recent years and its dogged style. The match was levelled at one, two, three, four, five, six, eight and 10 with Spain pulling away in the final period far enough to upset Serbia.
"It was not an easy match. I mean they are legends of our sport, so it's never easy to beat them, the Olympic champions. But I think we played amazing water polo, with our way of playing, with a lot of movement, a lot of swimming, it meant we could beat them."
If we go back to Rio 2016, Serbia also had an upset loss, losing to the Ratko Rudic-coached Brazilians before moving into and winning the gold-medal final.
There was nothing in the match until late in the second quarter when Spain tossed in two goals in 46 seconds to close the period with a two-goal buffer. Alberto Munarriz, who finished with four goals, claimed his second by beating the buzzer for the long break.
Serbia struck back with two goals to start the third quarter, both on extra-man attack. It was not long before Spanish captain Felipe Perrone thundered upfield to slam in his first goal in Tokyo and a minute or so later, Alvaro Granados made it 10-8. Then Spain’s saviour — Munarriz — scored twice on extra, two minutes apart to have Spain in the box seat at 3:58.
Jaksic responded and Francisco Fernandez converted extra-man attack off the left post at 1:47 for the valuable two-goal advantage. Serbian maestro Filip Filipovic fired in with his famous left arm and at 1:23, there was still hope. Both teams took a timeout and neither could find the chink in the armour, giving Spain a huge boost and thoughts of a repeat performance of Atlanta 1996.
Match 5, 18:20, Group B, SERBIA 12 SPAIN 13
Quarters: 3-3, 3-5, 3-2, 3-3
Referees: Michael Goldenberg (USA), Georgios Stavridis (GRE).
Shots: SRB: 12/26. ESP: 13/31.
Extra Man: SRB: 9/11. ESP: 8/13.
Pens: Nil
Full match statistics: www.olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en
Flash Quotes
Dejan Savic (SRB) — Head Coach
“It was a very tough game like always against Spain. They have improved to a new level in the last two to three years. It was a tough game played at a good rhythm. We made a few mistakes that turned into a catastrophe for us. They were two goals up on three occasions, I think. Everything is open now. We lost two points but we can catch up in other matches.”
Filip Filipovic (SRB) — Goal scorer
"At the start, I thought that it was the most important game for us. But now, when it's finished, I think we don't need to suffer so much. To be honest, we didn't achieve what we expected. We really wanted to win this game but how we opened the game, and how it was finished with 13 received goals, I think we need to be honest and admit that the team of Spain was better tonight. We need to go back and think. Just work on a few things in defence, and try to not receive, you know, so many goals. But I think that other things went very smooth, so I cannot be completely not satisfied. We now need a win and we need points for going into the quarterfinals."
Dusan Mandic (SRB) — Goal scorer
"Clearly, Spain were better at the end and they had a well-deserved victory. Congratulations to them. We made too many mistakes in defence and that’s where we lost the game, our defence when men down. We will watch all these errors (we made) and try to be better in the next game. We are going to work on that and try to play better and better as the group goes on. We will try first to qualify from the group and then we'll see..."
Croatia emerged with a comfortable 23-7 victory over Kazakhstan after a shaky start.
“It is the start of the tournament and there is a big difference in quality between us and Kazakhstan. For us now, this is the start of the tournament.”
For Croatia, just getting to Tokyo was a hardship. Who could forget what happened at the Olympic Games Qualification Tournament in Rotterdam, Netherlands in February?
In probably the most thrilling match of the year — if not the century — Croatia downed Russia 25-24 in sudden-death penalties after levelling the match at 11-11 for the final berth at Tokyo. Russia came back to level the match and force the shootout with both teams missing an early goal before Russia stumbled with its 14th attempt.
There was no repeat of that tonight, although the opening half was a grand tussle. Once it got to 8-4, Croatia started to find space and make the most of its opportunities. Kazakhstan was getting nothing.
Croatia went on an eight-goal romp with Javier Garcia, playing at his fifth Olympic Games, scoring his second goal en-route to 16-4. Srdjan Vuksanovic netted his second at 16-5 and Rustam Ukumanov scored at 19-6. Vuksanovic gained a third at 22-7.
Maro Jokovic had a great start to his Olympics, scoring five times and Luka Bukic brought home four by the time Croatia nudged 8-4. Centre forward Josip Vrlic enjoyed his three goals, including a powerful backhander.
Marko Bijac was awesome as usual and smashed down a penalty shot in the dying stages, the ball bouncing back nearly to halfway. He finished with nine saves.
Kazakhstan played nowhere near as well as it did in the FINA World League Super Final and will be hoping for a better showing against Serbia on Tuesday.
Match 6, 19:50, Group B, CROATIA 23 KAZAKHSTAN 7
Quarters: 4-1, 6-3, 8-1, 5-2
Referees: Dion Willis (RSA), Frank Ohme (GER).
Shots: CRO: 23/36. KAZ: 7/28.
Extra Man: CRO: 2/6. KAZ: 4/11.
Pens: CRO: 3/3. KAZ: 0/1.
Flash Quotes:
Nemanja Knezevic (KAZ) — Head Coach
“Croatia is maybe one of the three best teams in the world. Kazakhstan played very badly in defence. Croatia has better people and the best players in the world and every position is complete. We must play better… we were better at the Super Final (in Georgia in June). There is a lot of promise in attack, but our defensive zone was very bad. Today is nothing. The day after tomorrow we play Serbia, the same standard as Croatia, and we must play better. It was the first game and I think my players were afraid of Croatia.”
Full match statistics: www.olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en