The continent’s top young players are busy fine-tuning their final preparations for the 2025 Men’s U18 European Water Polo Championships, with the Elite competition taking place in Oradea, Romania, and the Division 1 tournament in Rio Maior, Portugal. Both championships will take place from the 18th to 24th August.

Oradea

The Elite tournament will take place in Oradea, Romania, which is located near the border of Hungary and around 570km northwest of the capital Bucharest.

The 850-seat Ioan Alexandrescu pool will host all the games and has been the venue of many memorable water encounters in recent years, including the Qualifying tournament for the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 World Cup.

The group composition and schedule for Oradea is as follows

Group A: Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands
Group B: Serbia, Spain, Montenegro, Croatia
Group C: Türkiye, France, Romania, Poland
Group D: Germany, Malta, Georgia, Ukraine

Rio Maior

The Division 1 tournament will take place in Rio Maior, which is around 85km north of Portugal’s capital Lisbon, and is known as the ‘City of Sports’ due to its extensive and award-winning sports infrastructure.

Games will be played at the Rio Maior Sports Centre, the home of the Portuguese High Performance Swimming Centre – in partnership with the Portuguese Swimming Federation – and has two indoor swimming pools, one 25m and the other 50m.

The group composition and schedule for Rio Maior is as follows

Group A: Slovakia, Czechia, Moldova
Group B: Bulgaria, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark
Group C: Israel, Great Britain, Belgium, Austria
Group D: Lithuania, Portugal

Day 1 – Monday 18 August
Day 2 – Tuesday 19August
Day 3 – Wednesday 20 August
Day 4 – Thursday 21 August
Day 5 – Friday 22 August
Day 6 – Saturday 23 August
Day 7 – Sunday 24 August

Watch all the action live from Oradea and Rio Maior for free on the European Aquatics TV channel, which can be found by clicking here.