The two undefeated sides, Israel and the Neutral Athletes B team will clash for the gold medal at the Men’s U20 European Water Polo Championships Division One tournament in Oeiras. Their semis couldn’t have been any more different – Israel had to erase a four-goal deficit against Poland to win a hard-fought battle, while the Russians blew away the Belgians in the second period to cruise to an easy win. Passing the semis, the finalists already secured their Division Elite berths for the next edition.
In the first semi-final, Poland stunned Israel with a 2-6 blast in the first minutes. The Polish stormed to a 0-4 lead in four minutes, forcing an emergency time-out, which at least helped the Israelis to start scoring but their defence were still down. The underdogs went on scoring in the second period and maintained the four-goal gap till halftime when it stood 6-10.
The middle break was enough to restore order in the Israeli team and despite an early action goal from Piotr Kedzior, they launched their strong comeback campaign with a big hit from Raz Segere and after some battling, they converted three extras in a row in the last two minutes.
Poland’s advantage melted to a single goal before the fourth and it took 1:34 minutes in the fourth for Itay Peleg to equalise from the centre. Poland could score again after 8:30 minutes but Segere fired one in right away and the outstanding defensive efforts of the Israelis won the game for them in the next minutes. They denied their rivals in three man-downs in 53 seconds, then Levi scored from the centre to put Israel ahead for the first time at 13-12. Kedzior tied it with a man-up goal, but Segere netted one more from action for 14-13.
One last twist could have been in the cards as Israel missed a penalty 1:20 from time and the Polish had two more possessions, they went for a 7 on 6 (though with the goalie…) after a time-out, which turned into a 6 on 5 after a double exclusion, but their set-up did not work on the 2m line and Israeli goalie Amit Hemsi sent the ball to the empty net four seconds from time to seal a great comeback win for his side.
They will face the Neutral Athletes B team who, unlike the Israelis, took charge already in the second period. Belgium did some heroics to lead 3-4 in the first period, but then the Russians found their rhythm and an 8-1 rush in the following quarter put the game to bed by halftime.
All they needed to maintain the gap, but, not surprisingly, they expanded it and cruised to an easy win to reach the final to play the big match with Israel, featuring two undefeated sides. This is going to be a game of prestige in the first place as the top two have already secured their promotion to Division Elite.
Men’s U20 European Water Polo Championships, Division One, Oeiras
Semi-finals
- Israel v Poland 15-13
- Neutral Athletes B v Belgium 22-11
For places 5-8th
- Neutral Athletes A v Georgia 7-17
- Ukraine v Portugal 11-10
For the 9-12th places
- Switzerland v Lithuania 17-15
- Great Britain v Finland 17-6
For detailed results:
For Division Elite results, check out the results on this link:
Watch each game from both divisions live on www.euroaquaticstv.com
