The Croatian Water Polo Federation have today announced that they will promote the Assistant Coach of the Croatian Women’s National Team, Alijosa Kunac, to the position of Head Coach for the European Championships in Split later this summer.
The forty-one year old is a former Croatian International, winning gold at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne and representing Croatia at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The decision comes to switch up the staff as the current Head Coach, Mia Simunic, is leading the U18s in their Junior World Championship campaign in Belgrade (30th July- 8th August), and will be unable to commit to the senior team’s preparations for the the European Championships.
Croatia finished 10th at the 2020 European Championships in Budapest, and qualified for the 35th European Championships as technical hosts. But the hosts have reason to be quietly optimistic about their Women’s programme. Their U17s finished 7th at the European Championships in Sibenik last year, and practically the same group of players finished 8th at the U19 European Championships in Netanya just a few weeks ago.
Kunac is a more than suitable choice for the Croats, as he as been well integrated with the Junior and Senior national team programmes. Given the significantly young age profile of a lot of the players in the Croatian national team, Kunac will be well placed to oversee their continued development.
