Female The 'Water Warriors' have fun to the rhythm of Anni Espar to go to the final
It was
Filip Filipovic
, who he had to be, a man who has been leading
Serbia
all his life
, who was already chosen the best in the world 10 years ago, who found a millimeter gap between the arms of five Spaniards to score the condemnation goal (10-9). There were 26 seconds left when he scored the decisive goal, the one that broke the tie, the one that condemned
Spain
to fight for the bronze in the
Tokyo Games
next Sunday against
Hungary
(6:40 am). It could not be. After three consecutive finals, in a World Cup and in two Europeans, and after beating the Balkan team five times in a row, the team that
David Martín
coaches
he ran out of the award he was coming for.
Bronze would be a consolation, yes it would be, but now ...
Now it's time to analyze how a game that was won was lost, as Spain was winning by two (6-8) with four minutes remaining.
Until then he had done everything right, if anything he had trembled at first.
Felipe Perrone
said
that, being water polo so difficult to decipher from outside the pool, this time it would be easy to know if Spain was playing well or not. "If you see that a lot of water is moving, we are going well. If not, we are going badly," he foreshadowed. The explanation started from the comparison of the size of the Spaniards with the Serbs, bigger, stronger: if David Martín's team accepted the water polo set by his rival, very physical, stuck, even violent, he would end up defeated; his only option was to move, move, move. And they did, although it took them 10 minutes to get it and later they forgot.
In the first quarter not a drop was wagging in the Tatsumi Water Polo Center, the caps were almost dry. Perhaps due to the nerves of playing its first Olympic semifinal - nobody knew what it was - or perhaps due to a Serbian tactical surprise, Spain stopped and even wasted the three superiorities it enjoyed. Not a goal scored. Bad business. But start sometimes just start. In the first break, Martín's instruction was clear, they had to speed up, find the buoys and that's what they did: in front of the goalkeeper, Alejandro Bustos and Roger Tahull erased zero from the scoreboard and everything began to flow.
While Daniel López Pinedo maintained a very high percentage of stops (he reached 65%), the Spanish scorers, from Munarriz to Mallarach, found the first gaps and hit the mark.
From 0-2 it went to 4-2 and, from there to that 6-8 that heralded the pass to the final.
But then the calm returned to the water and, with it, the absence of so many.
Serbia, back in their sauce, came back, enjoyed themselves and, in the end, Filipovic was there to finish the match.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
sports
Spain Olympics
Water polo JJOO
Tokyo Games López Pinedo leads Spain to its first water polo semi-finals since Sydney 2000
Tokyo Olympics Another milestone against pessimism: all the teams in Spain, in the quarterfinals
Tokyo Olympics Why is Spain a world power in team sports?
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