Our women’s polo team traveled to the World Championship in Japan with high expectations, as a chance for the final victory, but the group stage did not necessarily turn out as expected. Although three wins came out of the three meetings, the game shown was not the real one. Canada was beaten by one goal, and Japan scored 21 goals to win 26-21. Against New Zealand, the team brought the paper form to the smoothest for the first time.
– In the group stage, our game was stuck, our defense was not very steely, it was perhaps the first time against New Zealand that we came together at the back. We knew that Canada would decide who would finish first in the quartet, but we were also aware that it would not be as easy a meeting as it was in Montreal. Perhaps we didn’t expect it to be so difficult either, but in the end we managed to win by one goal, which was the most important thing – Krisztina Garda, the main player of the DFVE and the Hungarian national team, began her evaluation for our paper. – Then before the Japan match, we knew that it would not be an ordinary water polo match, but we did not expect that, I could compare it to a handball match with fewer goals. After that there was a discussion. I don’t want to talk about what exactly was said, but we knew that we had to change our defense, we conceded a lot of goals. There was nothing wrong with attitude and morale, but I think that the times were missing when someone was injured and the travelers could have prepared together. Of course, there was plenty of space, so we could practice, but not necessarily those who were there then came. We weren’t fully united at the back yet, the symbiosis wasn’t there. However, I think big victories can only be achieved if the defense is in order and the attacks can be built on it. Against New Zealand, it was important to show a more collected game before the quarter-finals. It more or less worked, but then the match against Spain didn’t work out that way…
The fans awaited the quarter-finals with great anticipation, as in recent years they have not really managed to beat the Spanish, but when, if not at a World Cup. The staff and the players were also optimistic, as the picture was encouraging in the exercises before the meeting. However, at the beginning of the meeting, the Spaniards stepped up and were unable to reach them, winning 12-9.
“There is a lot of history in the fact that they went away with two or three goals at the beginning, and this gave them a lot of calmness, so it is easier to play.” We didn’t really care about the result, but regardless, we were constantly chasing them, we were constantly at a disadvantage. It is also not permissible to know who the good players are, obviously there are more, but one of them scores five goals in such a quarter-final, that is not acceptable. Because if he scores five and the others score two, we’ve already scored 13 goals. In those situations that we messed up, they immediately took advantage of them, we overplayed several times, or we shot on goal when we had the chance for a closer result.
After that, only fifth place would have been the maximum, and the Greeks and the Americans would have had to be crushed on this road. The former was successful, but the USA ended up taking fifth place in the World Cup with penalties.
– We were hurt by the quarter-final loss, we didn’t travel to play for fifth place. And these two matches could have been among the top four, we all had to give ourselves one hundred percent. Greece is not a bad team either, they block well, they have good players, we had to play as if it was a final. Against the USA, the defense was already quite good, the blocks and saves also came, we also showed good things in attack. It all came together a bit late, if we knew the reason for that, we could have changed it even there. We mainly had problems with the defense in the tournament, the attack wasn’t perfect either, the use of the man advantage wasn’t the right one, and our front game didn’t work like that against Canada and Spain either.
