Croatia beats Japan to reach water polo World League semifinal

by croatiaweek
June 21, 2019
in Sport

Croatia and Japan in action today (Photo: HVS)

21 June 2019 – The Croatian water polo team has beaten Japan 20:13 (4:3, 6:3, 5:2, 5:5) on Friday to advance to the semifinal of the 2019 World League in Belgrade.

(Photo: HVS)

“A convincing and comfortable win, even though we were a bit tentative going into this game considering their style of play and our accumulated fatigue. However, the players reacted brilliantly. With the exception of the nervous start, we played a good match. Let’s go, tomorrow is the semifinals. We are playing against Spain, which will be a very tough match. In the past few years we have always struggled against we get the better of them. But I believe we have the strength to beat them, I believe we are better and we will take victory this time too,” coach Ivica Tucak said.

(Photo: HVS)

Croatia’s Fatović, who scored five goals, was named man of the match. There were goals also for Šetka and Krapić (3), Joković, Buljubašić and Bušlje (2), and Lončar, Vukičević, and Miloš (1).

(Photo: HVS)

“What we have shown on the tournament so far we planned and managed to get into the semifinals. Of course it was not all perfect, but it was important that we realized what we intended, and that was reaching the semifinals. Tomorrow we expect to play the best match so far in the tournament and hope to move to the final, “ said the captain of the team Andro Bušlje.