The Olympic silver medalist and the winner of the bronze at the Worlds in Budapest last year, the Greek male team, flies to Japan for the World Championships tomorrow.
The Fukuoka tournament will be the sixth World Championships for Greece’s captain Ioannis Fountoulis. He was the best scorer of the 2017 Worlds with 23 goals when Greece finished 4th. However, the 2015 and 2022 World Championships certainly hold a special place in his memories as he reached the podium with his national team, winning bronze medals.
Like many world powerhouses, Greece had the last test for Fukuoka in California last week. It finished in 5th place. The Greeks lost to Hungary in a low-scoring quarterfinal – 4:6 (before the fourth quarter, it stood 4:4). Then, they ran over Germany (19:6). At the end, Greece beat Romania 11:8, despite a slow start in the 5th-place match.
“We are not satisfied with our result in World Cup. We wanted to win a medal. We were coming from a tough period in our preparation, but this stands for all teams, so it is not an excuse. Greece played against a very good team in the quarterfinals, and we lost in a low-scoring game that was decided by small details. We didn’t capitalise our chances. Hungary’s goalkeeper Vogel had an outstanding game, which cost us the win.
In the next two games, we took the victories, but it is hard to show your best when motivation is not at the highest level”, Ioannis Fountoulis analyzes the tournament in Los Angeles in an interview with Total Waterpolo.
Photo by lalex.k/Total Waterpolo
What Greece has to improve until the start of the Worlds in Japan?
“I think that we will show much more energy in our play at the World Championships. In the last days of the preparations, we have been focusing on our tactics and some details we need to improve in our game.
I think we have to eliminate cheap mistakes that can cost us the win, like in the match against Hungary in Los Angeles or in the last year’s World Championships semifinal against Italy at the end of the game. There are very small differences between the teams at this level, so every detail matters.”
Since Fountoulis’ debut at the World Championships, Greece has reached the semifinals three times and won two bronzes. Some of the other significant successes that the Greeks achieved in the past few years ar a historic Olympic silver, two bronze medals..
The composition of the 2023 World Championships is almost the same as in Budapest in 2022. Georgia and Brazil are missing. France and Argentina replace them. Considering all the facts (strength of the rivals, draw, etc), we asked Fountoulis for his opinion to compare the difficulty of the road to the semifinals in Budapest and Fukuoka.
“I believe there is no easy road to success on this competition level. It was difficult last year to go on semis, and the same will be this year. You need at least two wins against great teams to go on to the semifinals and fight for a medal – one in the group and the most important in the quarterfinals. I believe there are eight – nine teams at the highest, so it won’t be easy for anyone. But we have faith in our team and ourselves and believe we can go far in the Championships in Fukuoka.”
Playing without and for Angelos Vlachopoulos
As we already reported, Greece will go to Japan without Angelos Vlachopoulos because of personal reasons. He wasn’t on the roster announced on Tuesday. Until yesterday evening, there was a slim chance he could join the team, but Greece will play without Vlachopoulos in Japan.
“Unfortunately, we will miss Vlachopoulos, who definitively plays a key role in our game. But, this is something that should make us stronger and motivate us to play also for him. Everyone in the team should give something extra in order to cover Vlachopoulos’ absence, and that is what we intend to do.”
Greece Photo: Total Waterpolo
Greece is the only team that won’t have a match against a European rival in the group stage. The Greeks will face the USA, Australia, and Kazakhstan in Group A. Last year, one of the hurdles they passed to the bronze medal was Team USA. The Greeks beat the Americans 16:11 in the quarterfinals. This season, the two teams that are the most serious contenders for the top spot in the group haven’t met yet in official games.
“We have three non-European teams in our group, which are teams that we don’t play against so often. But, Greece and the USA know each other very well because we faced them in recent competitions and also had a lot of preparations together. The USA is a very talented team. Their game depends on Ben Hallock, one of the world’s best center forwards right now. In the World Cup, they showed they can compete against everybody. I believe the Americans have improved since last year mainly because most of their players are in the Europan clubs, which helped them significantly evolve their game.”
“Pole position” for Spain, many have same goal as we – reaching podium
As usual, a question about the predictions and the favorites is inevitable in interviews before a big tournament. Still, from year to year, it has been more and more difficult to predict what would happen.
“Six different teams played in the finals in the last three major competitions, Olympic Games, World Championships, and European Championships, which shows that there are tiny differences between the teams, so every prediction is risky.
In my opinion, Spain is arguably the best and most consistent team in the world right now, and their recent results put them “in the pole position”.
But there are teams like Italy, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, the USA, which have the same goal as we do – to be on the podium.”, Greece’s captain underlined at the end of the interview.
For more news and the schedule about the upcoming Worlds, visit Total Waterpolo’s 2023 World Championships page.
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