"Red Fury" too strong for the young "Sharks": Spain ends dream of final, but fight for medal continues

The young Montenegrin water polo players failed to qualify for the final of the European U20 Championship in Varna. Spain beat the "sharks" 15:10 (5:1, 4:3, 2:4, 4:2).

Our water polo players remain in the fight for a medal. They will face a match for 3rd place, which will be played tomorrow at 5 pm, and their opponents will be the defeated team from the duel between Croatia and Italy (6:30 pm).

Our team was weakened today, and it will be so tomorrow, due to the absence of Tim Perov, who earned a "brutality" against Greece yesterday.

The match was decided in the first quarter, when Spain made the key difference. The "Red Fury" were excellent on both sides of the pool, and our first goal came only in the last minute of the first period when Draško Samardžić reduced Montenegro's deficit to 5:1.

During the second half, Nebojša Milić's team reduced the deficit to three goals several times, but Spain, with two goals at the end of the first half, had a big +5 (9:4) at the halfway point of the match.

Thanks to a good finish in the third quarter, hopes for a big turnaround were raised. The "Sharks" came close to being down three again (11:8), and had an attack to close the gap to two goals at the start of the last eight minutes, but that attack was not realized.

After that, Spain again escaped to a five-point lead (13:8) with goals from Unai Lema and Oriol Viñas, thus turning the match around.

The most efficient player in our team was Danilo Stupar with three goals, while Ognjen Moračanin and Strahinja Gojković scored two each. Draško Samardžić, Stefan Vraneš and Andrej Durutović scored once.

Danilo Rajević made nine saves in front of the Montenegrin goal, and Marko Pejović made one.