FINA World Championships 2013:Water Polo Men: Day 3: GER 9 ROU 8

POLO AIR INDONESIA, Germany held out a fast-finishing Romania 9-8 for second place in Group D, leaving the Romanians winless at the end of the preliminary round. Germany had the game intact at 7-3 by halftime before the Romanians found some symmetry within the team.

Petru Ianc found himself free at the from, had his first shot spat back at him by Morita Schenkel and then scored for 7-4 three minutes into the third period. Andrei Busila scored after the extra-man 20 seconds for 7-5. Paul Schueler responded for 8-5 from the top to close the third.

Dennis Eidner emerged as a star with three goals. He scored on extra-man attack in the opening quarter, snapped in a shot on rebound in the second and produced one of the goals of the championship when he accepted a cross pass from his left at centre forward, took the ball cleanly above the water, turned his wrist and right-back-handed the ball into goal for 9-5.

Romania was not finished and Ianc thundered a shot under the right arm of the goalkeeper; Andrei Busila scored cross cage at 3:19 and Alexandru Ghiban was free on a short drive, accepted a pass and scored at  2:33 for 9-8. The game was alive, big time.

Germany had trouble getting past Romanian goalkeeper Dragos Stoenescu and in the final stages Romania had three chances to score, losing the ball twice and Ghiban inexplicably not taking a shot with the final attempt, attempting to gain a 5m foul, but instead waiting for a defender to steal the ball, which he did. Any chance of a draw was expunged.

Romanian head coach Vlad Hagiu appealed for some minutes after the match to the referee but it was clearly a bad mistake by the player.

It was Germany’s sixth consecutive victory against Romania since losing in the 2006 World League.