According to the women’s polo captain, we can beat anyone

“I’ve been a part of many of these, and although you tend to think that it will get easier, it’s actually getting harder,” said the co-captain of the women’s water polo national team about the topic that weighs the most on captains, the Olympic announcement, Alexander the Czech to the MOL Team.

“Two coaches, two creeds, two polo philosophies, but for the sake of the common goal, we always find an intersection with Attila Mihók, and we are very united when we make such weighty decisions. Of course, we thoroughly explored the questions regarding the framework, but after conducting the professional debates, I can say that we will travel to the Olympics with the team we wanted” – stated the specialist.

We both give and receive slaps

The women’s national team lost to Australia in the preparatory tournament in Greece, but they also achieved a feat in the Tetis Cup, as our team defeated the host Greeks in a very tough match. This was followed by an even bigger feat, as they managed to beat the defending champion in an official match at the joint training camp with the United States.

“We have a great two and a half weeks behind us, the Greek and American tours were also a great challenge professionally. We thought about the latter, whether we should accept it, because it is very far, but we were like this: if the defending champion wants to play two goals with us, it is such an honorable request that we have to do it. We didn’t regret it, we learned a lot from the American days.”

“In Greece, we really messed up the beginning of the opening match against the Australians, but we were able to come back there as well, and in the end we lost by only one goal. “Even though they didn’t succeed in the final, they have now shown that they are not considered among the best by chance. I think Australia will be a tough opponent for anyone at the Olympics. We won our other matches, of which the success against the Greeks is obviously the biggest word , but they are still looking for their team. They will also be strong at the Olympics.”

The water boiled properly in the match against the Greeks (Photo: Eviasport.gr)

The team didn’t even come home, they flew straight from Greece to San Francisco, where they trained for ten days together with the United States, which won the last three Olympics. The captain said that in every joint training, two-goal and unofficial match, it was clear which team was better, but the Hungarian team stood its ground and even proved that it was capable of the feat.

“The second of the two official matches was broadcast on TV, it was quite a big show, and I saw that it caught the Americans a bit. The fact that we defeated them is a big thing in itself, but its message is even more important: even though they are exceptionally good, even though they have a goalkeeper who protects everything, they are also only human. And you can freak people out” said Czech.

Keep the fire and the pace

According to the co-captain, after returning home, the most important task of the staff was to keep the momentum of the American training camp going, since the Olympics are really around our necks.

We are developing and moving forward (Photo: MVLSZ)

“Our team didn’t stagnate during the preparation, but kept getting better and better, and that’s great to see. Now we need to ensure that this curve of development continues and we are at our best when it is most needed.”

We have talked many times about when that is, but Cseh confirmed this time as well: “For us, the first final will be the quarter-finals, if we succeed in that one, then we will see the rest. What do you need for that?”I think we have to finish in one of the top two places in the group because then we can avoid the Americans and the Spaniards. Well, it’s not like it’s so easy to advance against the others, but it’s the Olympics: there’s no easy task here.”

We asked the captain, based on the experience of the past weeks and years, where he would place the Hungarian national team based on his knowledge of the game. “My opinion has not changed, I think the same as I said last time: the USA is the strongest national team, closely followed by the Spanish-Dutch duo, and then there will be a chase with the Italians, the Greeks, the Australians and of course us.”

We can trust the order of power of Sándor Cseh (Photo: MVLSZ)

“Obviously, this does not mean that the final result will be the same, because it can be seen that many teams are capable of causing surprises. For us, the most important thing will be to go into every game wanting to beat the opponent. Because we know otherwise. All of them.”