Five medals from the three biggest competitions, many great matches and unforgettable moments are behind the water polo team of Montenegro. But, when it comes to world championships, it's mostly all about one tournament.
On Monday in Fukuoka, the "Sharks" will begin their eighth appearance at the World Cup, a competition that has always been the most complicated for our national team. This is best confirmed by the fact that the guys in the caps with the Montenegrin coat of arms only made it past the quarter-finals once and then reached the only medal from the world championships - silver in Barcelona exactly 10 years ago.
Roman shock and Porobić's farewell in Shanghai
While Montenegro was shaken by water polo fever like never before after winning the European Championship in 2008 and the World League in Podgorica in 2009, a cold shower followed in hot Rome.
Just one year after the golden Malaga, while the fans were traveling to the Eternal City and the end of the tournament, the then selection Petar Porobić shockingly, Germany sent them out of the World Cup in the round of 9. In the end, the European champion had to settle for XNUMXth place on the planet.
Two years later, in distant Shanghai, the quarter-finals were the ultimate reach of the "sharks" - their dreams of a medal were crushed by Croatia (9:6), and it was also Porobić's farewell to the bench of Montenegro with the 7th place finish.
Power on Montjuic
Heir Petar Porobić was Ranko Perovic, the man who conquered Europe with Primorje and with Montenegro in 2012 immediately played the final of the European Championship in Eindhoven and reached the semifinals of the Olympic Games in London, and a year later wrote the most beautiful page of our water polo at the world championships on Montjuic hill in Barcelona.
Although the "sharks" started with a defeat against Greece (a team that was still far from the top), they are already in the knockout phase Aleksandar Ivović (the best scorer of the tournament) and his teammates started to break big rivals - Serbia in the quarter-finals (9:8) and Italy in the semi-finals (10:8).
The opponent in the final was Hungary, at that moment it seemed an easier rival than the previous two, but as if it was Nikola Janović and the teammates did not have the strength for the final shot, so the silver arrived in Montenegro.
The earthquakes in Kazan and Budapest and the reality after that
At the next two championships, in Kazan (2015) and Budapest (2017), Montenegro finished in fifth place, again far from medals, and with those two championships, more than the performances of the "sharks", the upheavals within the national team are remembered.
After the elimination from Croatia (10:4) in Russia, Ivović said that the national team had lost its cult, and Perović already knew after that match that he would leave the national team after the playoff from 5th to 8th place.
He arrived instead Vladimir Gojkovic - at the European Championships in Belgrade in 2016, he won silver and after that started a change of generations. The following year, at the WC in Budapest, the "executioner" in the quarter-finals was Greece (12:7), and the tournament was marked by a conflict between the selectors and Darko Brguljan, after which the water polo player from Kotor was no longer invited among the "sharks".
The last two championships in Kwangju (10th place) and again in Budapest (eighth) somehow confirmed the new reality of the Montenegrin national team, which is that medals are currently far away.
A new opportunity follows in Fukuoka, and anything beyond the famous quarter-finals would be an unexpected and huge success.
Montenegro at the world championships
- Rome 2009 - 9th place
- Shanghai 2011 - 7th place
- Barcelona 2013 - silver medal
- Kazan 2015 - 5th place
- Budapest 2017 - 5th place
- Gwangju 2019 - 10th place
- Budapest 2022 - 8th place
Bonus video:
