European water polo is enjoying some rather busy days featuring four gruelling battles in the third round of the Champions League qualification and the draw for the 2016 European Championships in Belgrade.
The first leg of the four play-offs is scheduled for Saturday evening: with eight fine teams reaching this stage, it’s hard to envision decisive wins in these games. Still, there are two sides which appeared in the Final Six last May – Rijeka and Szolnok –, they are the strongest in the field.
Rijeka plays at home in the feared Kandtrida Pool, however, their rival, Hannover produced a couple of great results in the previous two rounds, so the Germans can cause some head-aches for the Croats as well.
Hungarian champion Szolnok visits Marseille: provided that all but two players are regular members of various national teams – they have three freshly-crowned Serbian World Champions and four Olympic gold medallist Hungarians – Szolnok has a strong chance to go through again.
The other Hungarian side, OSC Budapest was knocked out by Szolnok last year in this phase, this time they will clash with DiGi-Oradea (ROU) – this is going to be a tremendous fight between the Hungarian league’s silver medallist and the Romanian champion.
Jadran Herceg Novi might become the first Montenegrin club in four years to reach the prelims, but they have a mountain to climb as they face the strongest of the previous round’s runners-up: Brescia. The Italians chose to take the bumpier road by offering their wild-card to Recco and see if their newly-built team is capable of reaching the prelims on its own. They seemed strong in the last round – but Jadran also fought hard, earning a top spot through claiming three single-goal wins.
And on Sunday all eyes will be on the City Hall of Belgrade where the draw for the 2016 European Championships will be conducted – the event will be broadcasted live by the Serbian State TV.
Champions League, Qualification Round III
1st leg
19.00: Primorje Erste Bank Rijeka (CRO) vs Waspo Hannover (GER)
20.30: DiGi Oradea (ROU) vs A Hid-OSC Budapest (HUN)
20.00: CN Marseille (FRA) vs Szolnoki Dozsa-Kozgep (HUN)
19.00: Jadran Carine Herceg Novi (MNE) vs AN Brescia (ITA)
