Montenegrin water polo players wanted the first place in group A at the World Championship in Kwangju, thus a few more days to rest before the clash in the quarterfinals.
They didn't fulfill any of that, but there is no reason to despair, nor is there time for that, because the "sharks" will play a round of XNUMX match against Australia on Sunday, starting at seven o'clock Montenegrin time.
Victory leads to a fight for medals (in case of victory, the rival is Hungary in the quarter-finals), defeat would mean a disaster, because Vladimir Gojković's team would have to go to a play-off for placing from 9th to 16th place as a punishment.
But, the role of favorites is implied against a team that has quality, but which is objectively a category below our national team.
"The Australians were slightly defeated by Croatia at the start of the WC, but now they are playing better. They have several good players, of which I would single out Younger and Case, and the fact that they took bronze at the World League in Belgrade shows that they are worth it. They progressed and I have no doubt that it will be a difficult match, with a lot of swimming, diving..." said captain Draško Brguljan.
Montenegro had many chances to be first in the group. She squandered them in duels with Serbia and Greece...
"This is a difficult path to the fight for a medal, but if we play like we did in some moments against Greece and Serbia, we will pass safely. In those two matches, we had some minor drops in the game, they were not that big. Now all that is behind us, I hope that in this second week we will be much more concentrated and better", pointed out Brguljan.
Bogdan Đurđić also appreciates the "kangaroos", who are led from the bench by the legendary Croatian Elvis Fatović.
"We watched them against the Americans, you can see that they are a physically strong team. Although, it's not something we haven't faced before. I believe that a lot depends on us and that we are very close to the quarterfinals if we repeat some previous editions. It's the knockout phase, we know there's no way to fix it, but at the same time we're very optimistic," says Đurđić.
Uroš Čučković mentions the advantages of our team.
"I think we are ready, although Australia has shown some strength in both the World League and the World Cup. We have to enter the game in the right way, to show that quality is on our side and to be a team. We are tactically more prepared, we feel good physically, we have better individuals... Everything is on our side and we have to take advantage of that", says Čučković.
Immediately after the duel between Montenegro and Australia, Greece and the United States meet (8.30:XNUMX a.m.), and the winner of that duel will face Italy in the quarterfinals.
In the quarter-finals, Serbia will meet with the better team from the clash between Spain and Japan (10 am), and whoever wins the match between Germany and South Africa (11.30 am) will go to the Croats.
Bonus video:
