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Croatia Won The Gold Medal

The men's water polo gold medal has been awarded to Croatia, while the silver medal will once again go to Hungary, after a thrilling final at the 12th FINA World Championships. Scores were tied at 7-7 the end of regulation but Croatia proved the stronger of the two, winning the gold medal 9-8 after six minutes of extra time. "When I was putting this team together my aim was always to win a medal," Croatian coach Radko Rudic said. "Of course you don't want to predict which medal. We have a good team and we've continued to advance and to play better." Like the women's gold medal final on Saturday, both teams owed a lot to their respective goalkeepers. Croatia and Hungary had a lot of shots but the skill and strength of Croatia's Frano Vican and Hungary's Zoltan Szecsi in goals made scoring difficult. It looked as though Hungary might have had the upper-hand midway through the final quarter. The silver medallists from 2005 led by two goals, 7-5, the biggest lead all match, after scoring a goal with five and a half minutes to go. It was a lead which proved difficult to hold onto and to Croatia's credit, it scored two consecutive goals to leave the scores tied at the end of regulation time. Hungary had some good opportunities to take the match late in the final quarter and Croatia also had a good chance but with 45 seconds remaining Andro Buslje shot into the crossbar. Both coaches called last-minute time-outs but neither Rudic nor Denes Kemeny could rally their troops into winning the battle for the gold medal. "Some of the players did not play well at the important points," Kemeny lamented after the match. Extra time proved just as fierce. Both teams missed early opportunities to grab the lead and it was Croatia who scored first during the initial three minute period. Pavo Markovic for Croatia drew the first blood taking the score to 8-7 after shooting a quality long-range goal from outside the five-metre area. Just 11 seconds before the end of the first period of extra-time, Hungary equalised through Gergely Kiss to bring the score to 8-8 at the change of ends. Croatia took the lead with a minute and a half remaining with another bullet-paced goal to Markovic. This goal was to prove the nail in the coffin and Croatia won its first world championship gold medal in water polo. "I cannot describe it. This feeling is something you cannot describe," Croatian Maro Jakovic said after the medal presentation. "I am totally out of myself. I've been receiving congratulations from all over the world. I am thrilled with this." Jakovic said the win was all the sweeter because of the strength the team had to show during extra time. "It's very intense because in extra-time you're power is getting lower, you are running out of strength," he said. "We had to put ourselves together and play much harder and it paid off." The two teams swapped the lead throughout the duration of the match. Hungary led at the first change after answering Croatia's opening goal - less than a minute after the start of the match - with two of its own. The water polo super power led 2-1 at the first break. The match was characterised by physical play, strong defence and good goalkeeping but also missed chances for goal. In the second term particularly, both teams struggled to get away clean scoring shots from a good range. Many of the attempts flew wide, over the top of the goals or were saved easily by the keepers. There were four goals in the second term, three to Croatia and one to Hungary to give the Croats a 4-3 lead at the long break. "It was really hard, really physical. When you play a team like Hungary you know it won't be easy," Croatian Damir Buric said. "To be honest I thought we played better than them but when we were two goals down I knew it would be hard to fight back." Zdeslav Vrdoljak and Mile Smodlaka both scored from the field, while Miho Boskovic scored off a five-metre penalty. Norbert Madaras was the only one to score for Hungary in the second term. His team could have equalised just before the long break when Peter Biros had a chance to score in a one-on-one play with the keeper. He chose to delicately lob the ball over the keepers head but unlucky for him, it clipped the crossbar and went over the top of the goals. Hungary won back the lead in the third term to go into the final quarter 6-5 up after Hungarian Daniel Varga scored two consecutive goals and then saw his team-mate Marton Szivos score a third in that third quarter. Szivos's goal was a thrill for the large Hungarian contingent in the crowd. With five seconds to go and the scores tied after a sneaky Croatian goal, Szivos batted the ball along the water past Croatian keeper Vican after Vican failed to completely control the ball. It was not long after that though, in the final quarter that Croatia re-entered the match and ended up victorious. "It is one of the best things to return home as the World Champions," Rudic said.

 

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