|
At Malta,
everything is set to witness another memorable coronation of the
Champions League season. The Final Four tournament features the four
best teams in Europe, title-holder Pro Recco, ready for breaking more
records, two former champion sides, Olympiacos and Ferencvaros, and the
runner-up in the last two seasons Novi Beograd. As Recco’s legendary
coach Sandro Sukno put it: here the level will be higher than it was in
the semis at the World Championship.
Champions League Final Four, Semi-finals – Wednesday
19.00 Pro Recco (ITA) v Olympiacos Piraeus (GRE)
21.00 FTC-Telekom (HUN) v Novi Beograd (SRB)
For the first time ever, the Champions League finals are heading to
Malta which has rich traditions in water polo but the beautiful pearl
of the Mediterranean needed to wait till this week to see the crème de
la crème of the sport.
As the CEO of the local federation and the organisers Karl Izzo said,
“This is a significant milestone in the history of our aquatics
sports”, while Hon. Clifton Grima, Minister for Education, Sport,
Youth, Research and Innovation talked about their three-year commitment
to stage the season-ending showcase in Malta. “Through this prestigious
tournament, we can create a lasting legacy. We are investing to our
infrastructure which enables us to host really high level international
sport events. But more importantly, we want the young generations to be
attracted by this beautiful sport.”
European Aquatics Vice President Kyriakos Giannopoulos ensured the
hosts that the best clubs arrived here, “very strong teams which have
the best players in the world. This event is going to be really
exciting as the quality of these teams are simply amazing, this is one
of the strongest fields we’ve ever seen.”
Definitely, the four semi-finalists were proving their outstanding
strength right from the beginning of the season. All four retained
their national titles respectively – and it is as amazing as it may
sound, but none of the four lost a single game in their respective
domestic championships. Recco was beaten in a penatly shootout by
Brescia in the Italian Cup final, Olympiacos was forced to have a
shootout in the first game of the Greek league final by Vouliagmeni
(won it though) as the only minor spots on their clean sheets. At the
same time, Novi Beograd and Ferencvaros posted perfect records in
Serbia and Hungary respectively, winning each and every home matches
across all competitions.
The only and rare losses came in the Champions League. Ferencvaros had
one, against Olympiacos, Novi Beograd had three, one to Sabadell, two
against Recco, one by penalties, Olympiacos was also beaten by Recco
twice and once by Ferencvaros – while Recco is yet to lose a match in
regular time in the entire season.
The Italian giant is one step away from adding another chapter to the
history books by becoming the first team to win the Champions League
four times in a row. They won the last three, boosting their total to
11, by far the most on the all-time ranks.
However, they face Olympiacos in the semis and that’s a challenge. The
last team which was able to bring down Recco in the CL finals was
indeed the Greek champion, which beat the Italians in back-to-back F8s,
in the 2018 final and in the 2019 semi-final. Ever since, Recco went
9/9 in the last three editions. The two already met in the prelims and
Recco prevailed in both matches but only by a single goal.
The other semi also promises a true thriller between Ferencvaros and
Novi Beorad. A Hungarian v Serbian clash is always exciting but here,
besides the top players from both nations, there is an army of foreign
aces at both sides. Dusan Mandic arrived to Ferencvaros from Novi
Beograd last summer, both teams have Greek greats, Stylianos
Argyropoulos in Fradi, Angelos Vlachopoulos and Dimitros Skoumpakis in
NBG, plus Italy’s all rounder Edoardo di Somma in FTC and Spain’s top
player Alvaro Granados in NBG.
Add that two legends may have their respective Last Dances, the
captains of the two sides, Denes Varga and Filip Filipovic and this
adds a really special flavour to this encounter.
Quotes from the opening press conference
Sando Sukno, coach, Recco
“Our expectionas are always high. This year we have an exciting season
which is long because of the the interational break. Now this is the
end, with four excellent teams and this tournament offers the highest
level of our sport, I’d say this tournament is going to be better than
the semi-finals and the medal round of the World Championship.”
Aleksandar Ivovic, captain, Recco
“Every year is different, this one is special with the European and the
World Championship in the middle of the season. Most of the players
were involved so they had a tiring season, with exhaustion, sometimes
injuries which gives more uncertainty to the outcome hre. We go step by
step, first we face Olympiacos, a strong team, we have a lot of respect
towards them as they have great Greek national team players and quality
foreigners. It’s going to be tough, we had two matches already this
season, both decided by one goal, so this is going to be very hard.”
Hrvoje Koljanin, coach, Olympiacos
“I know we had two close matches against Recco but I don’t think too
much of those games as we played them six months ago. It’s going to be
one tough match and we know whom we play with – an excellent team. We
are improving and we only have to look ourselves and not at our
opponent. We have to show good face and strongly believe that we can do
it.”
Konstantinos Genidounias, captain, Olympiacos
“Well, I can tell you a lot of things we have to do in order to beat
Pro Recco. But at the end, it will come down to our defence. If we can
prevent them from scoring many goals, if we can keep them under ten
goals then we’ll have a chance. We have been preparing for this and I
think we can do it. Of course, you can never expect beating Pro Recco.
But if there is one team which is able to do it, it’s Olympiacos as we
showed it in 2018 and 2019. We are here to win and we shall fight till
the very end to beat the team which won the last three finals.”
Balazs Nyeki, coach, FTC-Telekom
“I can say it has been a nice season, we played each of our matches
with great confidence and qualified for the Final Four with really
convincing performances. This makes me happy, but from now, it’s
already the past as we have two huge matches ahead of is. I believe in
my team, my players that we can achieve our goal.”
Denes Varga, captain, FTC-Telekom
“Telling that I’m experienced is a fancy way to say I’m old… But that’s
fine, however, whatever experience I have from past finals, I don’t
really care, nor I do about chances and rivals. All I care is to have
great motivation as we have very few disappointing memories this year.
We want to maintain our level and make the season even more memorable.
To achieve that, we only need two more victories.”
Zivko Gocic, coach, Novi Beograd
“We played well in this season and perhaps the fans are happy with the
way we play and we scored a lot of goals – but here this does not count
at all. We have two more matches in this long season, the first one
against a big team. We will do our best, for sure.”
Filip Filipovic, captain, Novi Beograd
“Well, there is definitely a Last Dance feeling inside as there are
going to be my last matches. I really wish to finish my career as I
wanted. It’s also a very special feeling to be here as twenty-three
years ago I came here for my first international tournament as young
kid with Partizan and now here I will have my last one as well. I’d
rather not talk about expectations, we live day by day, tomorrow we’ll
take one step. I’m sure our coach can help our team a lot as he spent a
lot of time in Hungary and knows our rival extremely well.”
|
