Greece has reached the pantheon of the Greek Gods — or nearly — by beating the most decorated nation, Hungary, 9-6 in foul-ridden first men’s water polo semifinal at the Tatsumi Water Polo Centre.

Greece has never played a final at the Olympics, so the victory means it will win its first Olympic medal and possibly emulate or go one better than the women’s team of Athens 2004, who lost to Italy and certainly better than the men’s fourth place, also in Athens.

Hungary is the current European champion and arrived at the semifinal with a loss and a draw while Greece is unbeaten, the only blemish a 6-6 draw with Italy, who is now play the classification 5-8 group.

Furthermore, the two teams opened their tournament in the same group and Greece emerged a 10-9 victor, so it this was always going to be a hard and bitter battle for an Olympic final berth.

The match threw up the most fouls of any match in Tokyo with a staggering 31 and it was whomever could exploit the situation would win the match. Greece converted seven from 14 while Hungary struggled with just four from 17 chances.

Hungary has the medals in the cabinet and further Olympic glory was on the line, trying to emulate the glory years of 2000-08 when its team reigned supreme.

Greece, claimed the opening goals through Stylianos Argyropoulos (8, above) and Konstantinos Gkiouvetsis, both from the deep-left position. It took until the last 90 seconds for the first goal to come and with five seconds remaining in the quarter, Marton Vamos got Hungary on the board, also on extra-man attack.

Argyropoulos scored on extra again, this time from the centre-forward position to start the second quarter, and Gergo Zalanki brought it to 3-2 at 6:41. So tight was the encounter, and excellent blocking defence, that no more goals came in the half.

Matyas Pasztor levelled for Hungary from deep left on extra and Argyropoulos stepped up for his third extra-man goal. Hungary called a timeout and Krisztian Manhercz, who scored seven goals against Croatia in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, continued the extra-man assault for 4-4. Argyropoulos netted his fourth by steering in a rocket pass from the top from his right-post position for 5-4 — the eighth extra-man goal.

With 21 seconds remaining there was a double-exclusion situation with Greece on attack, but the shot went over the top and Hungary attacked and shot, much to the chagrin of head coach Theodoros Vlachos, who raised his shirt to his head to muffle his disgust at the defence. Hungarian head coach Tamas Marcz gained a yellow card during the double-exclusion call.

The final quarter heightened in intensity and Manhercz cleaned up a poor pass to score from deep left for 5-5 at 6:32. Greek captain Ioannis Fountoulis snapped in a shot off a cross pass that was not on extra, for 6-5. Angelos Vlachopoulos converted extra at 5:07 for 7-5 only for Hungarian captain Denes Varga to strike back with an almost-lookaway snap shot from the top at 4:32. Then Gkiouvetsis fired in the skinniest of shots into the bottom left on extra for a critical two-goal advantage at 3:51. 

The huge Greek supporters’ club erupted and screamed again when Dimitrios Skoumpakis blasted in a missile from eight metres at 2:18. The result was beyond doubt as the Greek defence was too good. Hungary took a timeout but the shot was blocked and the match died away as a contest. Several other Hungarian chances were either not taken or blocked. Greece had made its first final of any sort since 1997 when it played and lost the World Cup at home to United States of America.

After three Olympic titles — 2000,2004,2008 — Hungary lost in the quarterfinals at London 2012 and Rio 2016, and finished fifth on both occasions.

Greece now awaits its opponent for the final and Hungary will have to be content to try and add a bronze medal to its tally of nine golds, three silvers and three bronzes.

Match 37, 15:30, GREECE 9 HUNGARY 6
Classification 1-4 Semifinal
Quarters: 2-1, 1-1, 2-2, 4-2
Referees: Michael Goldenberg (USA), Arkadiy Voevodin (RUS).
Shots: GRE: 9/27. HUN: 6/27.
Extra Man: GRE: 7/14. HUN: 4/17
Pens: Nil.

MATCH DETAILS

FLASH QUOTES

 Theodoros Vlachos (GRE) — Head Coach
"I think we were very careful at the beginning, because you have to be very careful with a team like Hungary. They are very strong in attack. (They have) very good shooters and in any moment that team can destroy every opponent. Our key was the defence again. If you play against Hungary and Hungary has just six goals, you can beat them. It’s a historical moment for Greece water polo, our first Olympic medal. I'm very proud that I'm the coach of the national team of my country. I'm very grateful and proud that we did this for Greece. But we cannot stop here, we have to fight like crazy in the final. We want to hear our anthem at the end.”

Alexandros Papanastasiou (GRE) — Fouled Out Early in 4th Quarter
“I didn’t get to play much of that quarter. I think I was as nervous as if I had played. So emotional. If anyone told me before the Olympics that we would win a medal of any colour, I wouldn’t believe them. Now we are going for gold!”

Emmanouil Zerdevis (GRE) — Goalkeeper
“I am very excited. I think my face says it all (grins). I cry tears of joy. I can’t believe it, really. (In the) last years we didn’t win medals and now we’re going to compete in the final of the Olympic Games — the biggest final. You can see that every team-mate of mine is very happy, and I think that we are not finished. With this energy, with this passion, we are going to compete for a gold."

Stylianos Argyropoulos (GRE) — Four Goals
“It took a lot of passion, but at the same time, we must keep concentrated. For me, it’s everything. I have never played in a final with my national team. This is my first final, and it’s the Olympics. We are very happy, but in a few hours we should be concentrated again and focused on the final because we are here, so why not take the gold medal.” On his four goals: “Every goal was from an assist, every goal came from team-mates. It all came together from very good participation and teamwork.”

Tamas Marcz (HUN) — Head Coach

“The first period quickly channelled the match into the type of game Greece preferred. Great, organised defending, slowly built attacks, looking for man-ups and decide the outcome by the 6 on 5s. Whatever we had in our minds, this battle was held on their territory and they were better in this game. Their man-up worked well or I’d rather say better than ours. Our defence did well too, six goals in three periods show a fine level, but our possessions didn’t bring much fruit. We should have played the ball faster, have more fantasy, a bit more surprising last passes while trying to break up their defence. We lacked the power of surprise; we lacked the wisdom and the calm minds to create more unexpected situations. Well, the Greek team already proved that their defence is tremendous, they kept Montenegro on six goals what was amazing, still, we have some brilliant offensive players, but they were unable to outwit them. A couple of our key men were below their usual level, didn’t bring the usual quality to the pool, and indeed none of them managed to step up and lead the team when the game turned into its critical phase. Too many missing elements which otherwise are essential to win an Olympic semifinal.”

Denes Varga (HUN) — Captain
“The Greeks deserved this, I should say. Their defensive efforts were simply outstanding and we just weren’t patient enough to find the best tools to break their lines up. I have to admit that even those few goals we scored from man-ups were coming from individual brilliance, it could be thanked to the scoring player’s skill; none of them was a nicely set-up 6 on 5 ending in a goal. Now I wish them to win the Olympic gold – it would be a kind of justification of what just happened here, that we lost to the best team.”

Krisztian Manhercz (HUN) — Two Goals
“We are extremely sad to lose this match. I think we committed too many mistakes – at the same time, I don’t think the fans felt entertained during this game. If this is the preferred style of play by the officials, then water polo may go to the wrong direction. Turning the matches into a slow-paced, man-up-man-down contest is perhaps not the best way you’d like to sell this sport. Anyway, we had our chances, but we missed most of them and we ended up losing.”

Gergo Zalanki (HUN) — Goal Scorer
“This is sport. It happens. We thought we would be in better shape for this game than the Greeks were on the opening day, but indeed they still outperformed us today. It’s too early to offer the proper reasons, I just feel that you need to accept if your rival is in a better shape.”

CLASSIFICATION 4-8TH: CROATIA - MONTENEGRO

Croatia eased into the classification final for fifth and sixth on Sunday by beating FINA World League champion Montenegro 12-9.

It was really a match for pride for two teams who qualified through the Olympic Games Qualification Tournament in February.

For a match where these two teams have played each other eight times in the current Olympiad (5 years in this case), the honours have been shared. Croatia tried to upturn that balance with a 1-0 first quarter and then hitting halftime with a 6-4 advantage.

Montenegro has had an excellent year, winning the Olympic Games Qualification Tournament and the FINA World League, but trying to win three in a year — in fact, just six months — has been a hard ask.

Croatia clinched the final berth for Tokyo 2020, thus its non-qualification for the medal round was not unexpected.

With Aleksandar Ivovic spearheading in the shooting department — 14 goals at Tokyo 2020 and 53 in his Olympic history before the match — Montenegro was playing for pride against its Balkan neighbour. The Montenegro legend, who scored the fourth goal to improve on the 6-3 deficit, netted twice early in the third quarter to keep his team in the hunt and lifting his Tokyo tally to 17.

Ante Vukicevic and Loren Fatovic had two each at 4-3, and Luka Loncar netted twice, for 6-4 and 8-5.

The three-goal burst by Croatia, interrupted by Ivovic, lifted Croatia from 6-5 to 9-5 before Stefan Vidovic drag a high ball down at centre forward on extra for 9-6, the last score before the final break.

Vukicevic started the fourth period with his third goal and eighth in Tokyo, for his team’s biggest lead. Maro Jokovic sent one into the bottom right and suddenly it was 11-6. Aleksa Ukropina and Miroslav Perkovic straddled another Josip Vrlic centre-forward backhand and it was 12-8. Both teams took a timeout with no scoring result. Perkovic latched on to a high cross pass at two metres and it was 12-9 to close the match.

Ivan Marcelic enjoyed his visit to the Croatian goalkeeping job, having played just one quarter before today, dragging down a tournament-best 17 saves.

Match 35, 14:00, MONTENEGRO 9 CROATIA 12
Classification 5-8 Semifinal
Quarters: 0-1, 4-5, 2-3, 3-3
Referees: Viktor Salnichenko (KAZ), Gyorgy Kun (HUN).
Shots: MNE: 10/36. CRO: 12/24.
Extra Man: MNE: 3/10. CRO: 3/8.
Pens: MNE: 1/1.

MATCH DETAILS

FLASH QUOTES

Vladimir Gojkovic (MNE) — Head Coach
“It’s very difficult to play (classification) five-to-eight matches for my players. I was a player myself and it’s hard to play following a quarterfinal loss. Today I can be satisfied because my team wanted to play. They scored some easy goals at the two metres and counter-attack. We need to learn from this for the future. (Looking forward) This group still has space to improve.”