2024 WORLD AQUATIC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- February 4-17, 2024 (Water Polo)
- Competiton Central
- Round of 16 Recap
- Quarterfinals Recap
Italy and Croatia will play in the championships game for men’s water polo on Saturday.
The second semifinal game was between France and Croatia. Croatia struck first scoring the first two goals of the game in just over three minutes. The second quarter was a battle as France scored to tie things up 3-3, Croatia then went up one 4-3 before France tied things again. Croatia then scored another goal to go up 5-4 but France fought back to make it 5-5. Croatia scored at the end of the quarter to make it 6-5 at half.
Croatia extended their lead to 9-6 by the end of the third. France had a big fourth quarter opening the quarter with back-to-back goals. Things were tied up 10-10 with just over two minutes to go but Croatia scored to go up 11-10 with 52 seconds left. France took a shot with 16 seconds left and scored to make it 11-11. The two went into penalty shootouts where Croatia won 17-16. Croatia was led by Loren Fatovic with three goals.
Spain and Italy were tied up with one goal at the end of the first quarter. A big second quarter with three goals put Italy up 4-2 and they never looked back. Spain had a late comeback as they scored the first two goals of the fourth quarter and were down 6-5 with only four and a half minutes to go, but Spain scored two goals to hold the team off. Alberto Munarriz had two goals for Spain.
In the first 5-8 classification game, Greece defeated Montenegro 14-13 in penalty shoot-outs. Serbia defeated Hungary 11-10 in the second 5-8 classification game.
Australia defeated China 17-7 in the 11/12 place game while the USA defeated Romania 13-9 in the 9/10 game.