China with former German national team coach Petar Porobic has missed the World Aquatics Water Polo World Cup final. The Chinese lost their final game in Berlin on Sunday with 7:18 (1:5, 1:5, 3:3, 2:5) against Romania which took one of the two tickets for the finals in Los Angeles (USA). For the Eastern Europeans, the victory meant that they will make a return to the big stage of water polo after a decade: the Romanians last made a World League final in 2007, and 2013 was the last time they qualified for a World Championships. “It’s a historic moment,” said goalkeeper Marius-Florin Tic.
Romania got off to a stronger start, after the first quarter, last year’s tenth place from the European Championship was already leading 5:1 thanks to a great efficiency on attack (71 percent conversion ratio). By half-time, almost all field players on the Romanian side had scored at least once, and at 10:2 the lead was already very comfortable. The eight-goal lead continued into the third quarter, although the Chinese were now scoring a bit better. The clear victory for Romania was no longer in danger, however, in the end they scored twice as many goals as the Chinese. Andrei Neamtu (three goals) was the player of the match, but he was joined by Vlad-Luca Georgescu and Levente Vanscik who also scored three goals each for the winner. “We are very happy that we qualified for Los Angeles. We made history,” Neamtu said.
Follow the games live at https://www.youtube.com/@WorldAquatics.
