The women’s polo team does not hide behind construction

Almost everything changed for the women’s water polo team at the beginning of the Olympic cycle. Almost because there are players from the Paris team at the head of the national team Alexander the Czech manages, but without the captain Attila Mihók, he leads our team as the only national team captain, and only five of the Olympic team are there for the first competition of the cycle.

“We started working together with 22-23 players, we arrived in Greece with seventeen t-shirts, and there are many of them who are either newcomers, or can be considered as such, because they have only participated in gatherings, maybe one or two matches,” he said a day before the start of the World Cup Sándor Cseh for the MOL Team.

Blind flight at all levels

The captain said that the formation of the team traveling to the next Olympics has begun, but he cannot say whether we can take the current squad as the backbone.

“Maybe so, but it’s not such a simple situation now. We have to play these six games in the World Cup, then we have to evaluate individually and as a team, and then we go from there. “For our staff, what happens in Greece will be extremely important, since after the World Cup the players will return to their clubs, and we will be able to work on the basis of the experiences here until the next meeting.”

Hungarian girls in a test facility (photo: MVLSZ)

“The situation is new for everyone. We are so early in the journey that there is almost nothing that can be said for sure about our team. One thing is for sure: whoever is here is aware of the rank of being a member of the Hungarian national team, and whoever the opponent is, they want to defeat them in the pool. This is a basic requirement for us,” said the captain appointed in the fall.

“We are in front of the first step.“At the moment, we have no basis for comparison either with the other teams or with ourselves, which is why the World Cup will be extremely important for us, as we will get a picture of the quality of individual and team play, and we will also measure where we are compared to the field.”

We test against the best

The Czech stated that he hates the term “test”, but now it is difficult to avoid it, since even though he has the philosophy of polo and the idea of ​​how to put it into practice, in reality everything is decided in matches, and the result is always the most important.

Sándor Cseh’s team was placed in a brutal group at the World Cup (photo: MVLSZ)

“We went through a very good training camp, we did the work we planned and we got the answers we could get during the training sessions. But it’s easy to laugh and be cheerful when there is no opponent in the pool,” he stated.

Now there will be opponents, not just any kind, as the Hungarian team has been placed in a brutally strong group. In addition to the host Greece, the world champion USA and the Olympic champion Spain will be our group opponents.

“Until a few days ago, we didn’t know anything about which team would change and how much, and what kind of opponents we should prepare for, so although I don’t like to say this, now we really only focused on ourselves. We are already here in Greece, we see the other teams and we see that there are new faces, but everything will be decided in the pool.”

Everyone starts forming their Los Angeles team (photo: MVLSZ)

At the Women’s World Cup, after the group matches, two more foursomes will be formed: the national teams finishing in the first two places play another full round to decide the first four places, while the third and fourth places compete in a similar full round in the 5th-8th. place, but the fight will be fierce here too, as only the two best can join the top four in the Super Final.

“There’s no such thing as the result doesn’t matter, everyone in the team knows this exactly, so even though we’re in testing mode, we have to start every game with the intention of winning.”It simply cannot happen that we hide behind the construction. You have to take responsibility!” said the captain determinedly.

“It’s impossible to imagine a more difficult group, so when someone said, ‘at least we can play good matches’, it occurred to me that we could play equally good matches against weaker teams,” he added with a laugh.

“Now it doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow or next week. The only thing that matters now is that we show who we are and what we want against a given opponent on a given day. There is no tomorrow, only today, and we are preparing for the World Cup in this spirit.”

The Hungarian Vk team

(17 people – 14 players can be entered for each match)
Goalkeepers : Luca Torma, Neszmély Boglárka, Lilla Maczkó
Field players: Tekla Aubéli, Vanda Baksa, Dorina Dobi, Dalma Dömsödi, Kamilla Faragó, Kata Hajdu, Rita Keszthelyi, Dóra Leimeter, Kinga Peresztegi-Nagy, Bíbor Pogonyi, Natasa Rybanska, Nóra Sümegi, Tiba Panna, Eszter Varró