The Final Eight of this year’s edition of Nordic League will take place from Friday to Sunday. The interesting fact is that Łódź, Poland will host 6 national champions which is a guarantee for some great games this weekend.
Reigning champion ŁSTW OCMER Łódź (Poland), KVIK Kastrup (Denmark), Turun Uimarit (Finland), KVP Nováky(Slovakia), SPIF Vattenpolo Stockholm (Sweden), Järfälla Vattenpolo(Sweden), VK Žaibas Elektrenai (Lithuania) and Kometa Brno vodni polo (Czech Republic) will battle for the trophy.
In the Preliminary Stage, the clubs were split into four groups. The top two teams from each group advanced to the Final Eight.
The quarterfinals schedule
Quarter-final 1 (17:00): KVIK Kastrup (1B) – Turun Uimarit Turku (2A)
Quarter-final 2(18:15): KVP Nováky (1A) – SPIF Vattenpolo Stockholm (3C)
Quarter-final 3 (19:30):ŁSTW OCMER Łódź (2B) – Järfälla Vattenpolo (2C)
Quarter-final 4 (20:45): VK ŽaibasElektrenai (1C) – Kometa Brno vodní pólo (3A)
All times are CET
The live scores and statistics will be available on Nordic League tournament page.
Before the tournament, we offer our readers the interviews with all coaches of the participating teams. They answered the same questions:
A) What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
B) What are the main strengths of your team?
C) Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
D) Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
KVIK KASTRUP – TURUN UIMARIT (17:00)
An encounter between Danish champion KVIK Kastrup and Turun Uimarit, the champion of Finland open the tournament.
Kvik’s coach Andrea Tafuro has played several years in Italy, with a total of 5 seasons in the first division (4 with Lazio, 1 with Roma), 4 in the second division (3 with Lazio, 1 with Roma), and 3 in the third division (2 with Mestre, 1 with Roma). He has played for KVIK since 2020, after a couple of years without playing. This isa the first year he is coaching a first division team, having coached U13-U15 teams previously in Rome.
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
Our hope is to achieve the highest possible rankings of course. However, due to exams and Covid 19 infections we are not able to come with our full team. Also, due to the late date of the tournament (Three weeks after Danish Championship finals) it is unfortunate that we are not able to show up with our strongest team.We will nevertheless try our hardest and feel very fortunate to be able to be a part of the Nordic League.
What are the main strengths of your team?
We are a very homogenous team, and have good goalkeepers.
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
We know the team well from previous games, and feel that we have the honor to play against one of the best teams in the tournament.
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
Turunand Zaibas (without seining all the teams)
Team Turun Uimarit is coached by Karri Kukkonen, who has about 20 years of experience in Turun Uimarit as men’s team coach (2006-2015 and 2021-2022). In addition, he has coached juniors and women.
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
A good and quality play in all three matches. The Final8 tournament is a great end to a long season.
What are the main strengths of your team?
Playing as a team and the good spirit of the team. The most important thing is to defend with high quality and attack sensibly. In addition, we have great players on the team.
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
Last year we might have won by one goal so a very even and tough match is expected.
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
Defending champions Lodz, Novaky from Slovakia and Elektranai from Lithuania are definitely really good teams.
KVP NOVÁKY – SPIF STOCKHOLM (18:15)
KVP Novaky, the champion of Slovakia, and SPIF Stockholm, which finished 3rd in the Swedish League, will face off in the second match of Day 1.
Peter Nižný, Novaky’s head coach, has been working as a coach for 10 years.
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
Winning the title
What are the main strengths of your team?
Experience, speed, discipline.
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
We’re looking forward to playing teams that we never met against. Honestly, it’s hard to say what to expect. However, we are highly motivated to win this game.
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
Again it’s hard to say. We have little experience playing any of the Final Eight teams. I suppose the home team Łódź will be one of the main favorites, we’ll see.
Amer Ali, SPIF’s coach arrived at this club at the beginning of this season. Previously, he worked as a coach in LASS (two years), and in LSF (two years).
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
Our expectation is to cement our tactical performance and show the opposing teams what we are capable of.
What are the main strengths of your team?
Our main strengths are our extra man plays and our strong and experienced goalkeeping.
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
We look forward to playing against the reigning champions of Slovakia, Nováky, who are in my personal opinion, the strongest team in NWPL. They are experienced and have spent a lot of time together, and I expect that we will have a tough game against an opponent who really knows how to handle themselves.
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
I believe, Nováky, the hosting team of Łódź, Brno and possibly Elektrenai are the ones competing for medals.
ŁSTW OCMER ŁÓDŹ – JÄRFÄLLA VATTENPOLO (19:30)
Champion of Poland and host LSTW Ocmet Lodz will play against Jarfalla on Day 1. Jarfalla is the national champion of Sweden.
LSTW has been guided by Edward Kujawa, who was coach an of the Polish national team and won 20 titles of the champion of Poland.
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
We finished a tough season in which we won the 20th Polish Championship. We don’t have great expectations, but we want to fight to defend the title won last year in Turku, Finland.
What are the main strengths of your team?
The mental strength of the team.
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
We saw our opponents from Sweden last year in Finland where they played very well.
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
Each team that advanced to the final tournament is not accidental and each is of a high level.
Fredrik Månsson (Jarfalla), has coached water polo for quite many years, all of them in Järfälla. However he had been away from coaching and returned to the club last season after a more than ten-year absence.
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
I expect us to take the fantastic opportunity to develop that comes with playing good quality games against strong opposition. We have decided not to use the possibility to strengthen our roster by bringing in players from other teams. We instead use the tournament as an opportunity, especially for our younger players to experience and learn from playing against strong teams. With that said – we still hope to surprise a team or two during the weekend.
What are the main strengths of your team?
Our strength can be found in the true meaning of the word team. As mentioned above our team consists of players that train and play together on a regular basis. This creates a strong group that stick together in both good times and bad. We prefer to play our water polo with a lot of movement witch when allowed helps us create a lot of opportunities to score.
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
First of all – it is a bit difficult to assess any of the teams due to the rather open regulations on player transfers. However, in my opinion, Lodz always brings a physical game and is always well-coached. We are truly looking forward to the game against our Polish friends!
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
With the disclaimer about the difficulty to assess depending on what players the teams will bring I still consider Novaky and Zaibas to be the strongest teams in the final eight.
ŽAIBAS ELEKTRĖNAI – KOMETA BRNO VODNÍ PÓLO (20:45)
Champion of Lithuania Žaibas Elektrėnai and Kometa, the 2nd-placed team in the regular season of the Slovakian League will close the quarterfinal day.
Anatolijus Asajavičius (Žaibas) has been a coach of the Lithuanian national team for five years, while he has coached Žaibas for four years.
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
We hope to play as best we can. To show the most beautiful water polo and to occupy the highest possible place.
What are the main strengths of your team?
Our team pays great attention to defense
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
At the moment we know little about our opponents from Brno. Hope they will be a strong opponent..
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
I think all teams are strong enough and the strongest will show in the final of the tournament.
Jakub Hlaváčik (Kometa) has had a great experience as an active player in ŠK Hornets Košice(winning the bronze medal in the national league in the season 2015/2016), KPSP Kometa Brno (national league bronze medal season 2017/2018 and the gold medal season 2019/2020). This season he became a coach and led Kometa to the silver medal in the Czech League.
What are the expectations of your team in the Final Eight?
Let’s be humble with the goals, this is our first appearance in the Nordic League. My goal is to join top 5 teams in the Final eight.
What are the main strengths of your team?
I think that the main strength of Kometa Brno is dedication and team effort.The actual team is playing together for many years, and we become something like a brotherhood, not just a team. Most of the players started as juniors in Kométa or joined the team during their university studies. We are now trying to implement a new generation of youngsters into the A-team.
Would you say some words about your rival team in the quarter-final?
I am really excited about this match, I’ll reunite with my old teammate from SK Hornets, Volodomyr Voitenko so let’s see how it will go. I think it will be a really tense match against Žaibas.
Which teams do you think are the strongest in the Final Eight?
My guesses for the top 3 teams in the Final eight are, KVP Nováky, Lodz and Žaibas.
The live scores and statistics will be available on Total Waterpolo’s Arena tournament page.
