FINA WATER POLO WORLD LEAGUE

Since 2002, the world’s best water polo national teams meet in an annual season format and compete against one another in the sport’s first international league.

In 2007, FINA launched a new formula with a more standard format comprising only preliminaries and the Super Final for both men’s and women’s tournament. In the preliminaries, the competition is organised as a tournament system, two for Asia and Oceania, one for Africa, and a series of “home and away” games for Europe. A Super Final with eight qualifying teams concludes the competition, comprising one team from the Americas, two from the Asia and Oceania tournament, one from Africa and four from the European tournament.

Croatia and Greece got precious victories in the third round of the European groups of the 2012 FINA Men’s Water Polo World League, beating respectively FYR Macedonia and Spain. The matches of this round took place on January 5, 2012 in Skopje (MKD) and Istanbul (TUR), on January 7 in Patras (GRE) and on January 11 in Kirishi (RUS).

Precisely in Group A, Russia didn’t find special difficulties to overcome Great Britain by 12-8, and is now second to Italy. The Italians did not play this round and accumulate two wins from their previous matches.

In Group B, favourite Croatia found a fierce opposition from FYR Macedonia, playing in front of its fans. Despite the pressure, the Croatians managed to control the game and triumphed by a tiny difference of one goal: 9-8. This result consolidates the lead of the Croatians in the group, but the decisive encounter will be played on round 4 against Germany.

In Group C, with four teams, two matches were played: on January 5, in Istanbul, Turkey could not do much against Romania, losing by an expressive 3-16. The Romanians have now nine points and the lead of the group, with their three victories. In Patras, Greece played a thrilling game with Spain, beating the Iberians by 9-7. Spain looks now in a fragile position to get the Super Final qualification, while Greece remains in the fight for the first place of the group with Romania.