Six more days until the spectacle at the "Belgrade Arena", the premiere against Malta and the official start of the tenth European Championship, where Montenegro will appear.
Our country's water polo players are slowly finishing their preparations for the second major competition in which they will compete with the coach. Dejan Savić, and the last test before the battle in Belgrade will be against one of the greats - Croatia, tonight at 18 pm in Budva.
- I hope that the stands will be full and that the audience will support us before the trip, and that we will travel in the best possible mood - he said. Vlado Popadić, a returnee to the Montenegrin national team.
The "Sharks" started their preparations in early December, and so far they have played two friendly matches - in Kotor they were better than Georgia (18:13), while in Naples they were defeated by Italy (15:12). There were also problems with injuries, but Savić's boys worked hard and are practically ready for the start of the tournament, which will be held again in the largest arena in Serbia after ten years.
- After the preparations in Naples with the Italian national team, there are still a few days left of training with Croatia in Budva. It will be the final preparations before going to the European Championship. These preparations will certainly be important for them and for us because we play almost every training session and now we can finalize certain tactical ideas - added Popadić.
Montenegro and Croatia know each other very well, and in addition to joint preparations, they have often met at major competitions. The last time these two teams met was in July this year, when the "barracudas" defeated the "sharks" 19:13 in the match for 5th place at the World Championship.
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Montenegrin water polo players have medals from major competitions - gold from 2008, silver from 2012 and 2016, as well as bronze from 2020.
The European Championship in Belgrade will last from January 10th to 25th, and in addition to Malta, Montenegro's rivals in Group A will also be Hungary and France.
Compared to previous tournaments, the competition system has been changed, so the top three teams from the group containing the "sharks" will, together with three from Group C (Spain, Israel, Serbia, Netherlands), form a new Group E, from which the two top-ranked teams will advance to the semi-finals.
Since regaining independence, the Montenegrin water polo team has not missed a single major competition (IOC, World Cup, European Championship), and the tournament in the Serbian capital will be the 25th in total that they will appear at.
When it comes to appearances at European championships, the “Sharks” achieved their greatest success on their debut in 2008 in Malaga, when they conquered the Old Continent. They have three more medals from that competition - two silver (2012, 2016) and a bronze (2020). One of the silver medals came from the “Belgrade Arena” 10 years ago, when our national team was defeated in the final by Serbia, which was then led from the bench by Dejan Savić.
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