The favorite to win this year’s Euro Cup was drawn to face the men’s water polo team of Panioni in the semi-finals. Against the Hungarian team Vasas, the task of the “blue and red” is expected to be extremely difficult, as the first game will be played in Nea Smyrni on March 1st, and the second leg in Budapest (22/3). The other pair of the semi-finals are the Italian Trieste and Savona.
Vasas is historically a “behemoth” and has two Champions Cups (1980, 1985), three Cup Winners’ Cups (1986, 1995, 2002) and a European Super Cup (1985) under its belt, while it has won the Hungarian championship 18 times. In the previous decade it had receded quite a bit, but it is slowly coming back to the fore. Last year they finished third in the league and got the ticket for the Champions League qualifiers, where they were unlucky in the play-offs, as they were drawn with the mighty Brescia and were eliminated with two defeats. Subsequently, in the Euro Cup, it faced two teams from Serbia consecutively, overcoming the obstacle of Red Star in the round of 16 with great difficulty (15-10 in Budapest, 7-11 in Belgrade) and clearly more easily in the quarter-finals against Sabac with two wins ( 10-4 home and 9-6 away). In this year’s championship, he is currently in fifth place.
Vasa is coached by Serbian Boban Nikic, with a huge career as a player (known in Greece from his four-year stint at Olympiakos), Olympic medalist in Rio, three-time world champion and five-time European champion, who is now taking his first steps as technical. There are two of his compatriots on the roster. goalkeeper Branislav Mitrovic and defender Sava Ranjelovic, both members of the Serbian national team that made back-to-back Olympic titles in Rio and Tokyo. The experienced Montenegrin Drasko Brgulyan, the Russian Ivan Nagaev, as well as the international Hungarians Tamas Mezey, Balaz Erdely, Bence Bátori, Tamas Seldmayr, Christian Bento and Akos Konaric also play in Vasas.
Follow News Bulletin 247 on Google News to be the first to learn the latest news .
I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
