It was decided before the last group round that the Hungarian national team – like the Italian one – could not finish behind the third place. The winner of the match could even win first place, which of course required Greece to take the lead from the United States. Like the match against the USA, Tamás Märcz decided that all field players would be needed against Italy, so goalkeeper Vogel Soma was left out of today’s match.
1st quarter
The Italians playing in the blue cap brought the ball to the swim. Both teams defended well at the beginning of the match, the goal silence was broken at the end of the third minute by Jansik Szilárd. The first man advantage was taken advantage of by the Italian national team, Gonzalo Echenique equalized. Dénes Varga was bored of the theory, his distant bomb hissed defenselessly into the upper left. In his hair, both teams had fun with a human advantage, so we had the advantage after the first eight minutes. (2–1)
2nd quarter
The Italians won the swim again, and in the second minute, after the exhibition of Balázs Hárai, they equalized through Matteo Aicardi. Dénes Varga took the lead worthy of the team captain, he scored another great goal. For nearly four minutes, neither team was able to score, both defenses closed well, the Italians bounced off several shots next to it. However, the Italians did not have Dénes Varga, After a time request, Tamás Märcz cut a traffic light. So he had two in between during the big break. (4–2)
3rd quarter
The good defense continued on both sides, until at the beginning of the fourth minute the referee saw Márton Vámos as irregular in the middle, for which he awarded a five-meter. Pietro Figlioli broke the ball confidently, with the Italians coming up in the waist of the inning. In the last moments we improved a bit on the human-friendly statistics: Dániel Angyal shot the 10th Hungarian Forum short. It was a psychologically important goal before the last quarter. (5–3)
4th quarter
At the beginning of the game, the Italians caught up again with a goal through Figlioli, and the Hungarian team left another human advantage unused: Norbert Hosnyánszky’s shot hit the post. Moreover, we missed a double human force, Balázs Erdélyi shot into the block. He asked for time in the middle of the quarter Tamás Märcz at the new human foul, but Gergő Zalánki’s shot was defended by the Italian goalkeeper. On the other side, Viktor Nagy also pulled down the blinds, and the goal post helped him out several times. After his harps, Hugo Campagna asked for time, and Francesco Di Fulvio equalized just over a minute before the end. (5–5)
The Hungarian national team finished third in the group with the tie, in the quarterfinals it will meet the 2nd place of the other group (Croatia or Spain).
TOKYO 2020
MEN’S WATER BALL, GROUP CIRCUIT, ROUND 5
Hungary – Italy 5–5 (2–1, 2–1, 1–1, 0–2)
(Cover image: Dénes Varga’s goal joy in the group match against Italy. Photo: Tibor Illyés / MTI)
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