We came back from the grave, but we still lost with penalties

Men’s water polo national teams, preparatory match:
Croatia-Hungary 16-15 (4-1, 3-3, 2-3, 3-5, 4-3) – with five meters
the Hungarian goal scorers: Manchercz 3, Zalánki, Hárai, Varga Dé. 2-2, Black, Angel, Customs 1-1

Zsolt Varga’s team was already 6-1 down in the middle of the second quarter, but from then on, their game improved enormously both in attack and defense. In the middle of the final quarter, the Hungarians caught up with their rivals at 9-9 and could have even taken the lead, but Márton Vámos – who provided quite an extra in his defense – missed a five-meter shot, and the Croatians scored from the corner.

Dénes Varga equalized again from five meters, and after another Croatian goal, the Olympic champion responded with a classic Hungarian goal. The Croatians scored again with a man advantage 22 seconds before the end, but the Hungarians also attacked with the goalkeeper and finally equalized with a shot by Krisztián Manhercz. The match was thus decided by five-meters, on the part of the Hungarians Dénes Varga and Vince Vigvári made mistakes, while the Croatians only missed one penalty.

It is not possible to see where the two teams are in their preparations, they started work earlier than us, this is also a factor. In addition, the two goals on Saturday did not show that this is how the beginning of the match will turn out, they put us to sleep a little. Of course, this is always the case with the Croatians, they don’t play with the same intensity in the training sessions as in the official match. Yesterday went well, we played well, the whole thing had a picture, a momentum – now that was missing at the beginning, but then as we came back into the match, our game gained momentum again and we found the right solutions, even at the very end, when we really the situation was sharp,” the website of the Hungarian association quoted Zsolt Varga as saying.

“It was important that they left, but we were still able to come back – and now this is the point: let’s start playing, let’s see what we really miss, what we still need to work on. We are obviously in hard physical work, the two intense sessions on Saturday after two goals today, a kind of fatigue may have appeared in the first quarter and a half, but it was good to see how the players worked through this,” said the captain, noting that the announcement of the squad next week obviously means a lot of pressure for the players.