Olympiacos almost fell again in Kragujevac,
just like last season, but Fililp Filipovic saved them at least a point with 7
seconds from time. Recco and Barceloneta had no problems to deliver another win
while Vouliagmeni managed to beat Hannover in a dramatic match and have a great
chance to make the Final 8 for the first time.
Group A: Zodiac CNA Barceloneta (ESP)
v Jadran Split (CRO) 8-6, NC Vouliagmeni (GRE) v Waspo 98 Hannover (GER) 10-9,
Pro Recco (ITA) v Dinamo Tbilisi (GEO) 20-5, Radnicki Kragujevac (SRB) v
Olympiacos Piraeus (GRE) 10-10
Standings: 1. Recco 21, 2.
Barceloneta 21, 3. Olympiacos 19, 4. Vouliagmeni 13, 5. Radnicki 9, 6. Jadran
7, 7. Hannover 3, 8. Dinamo 0
A year ago, Radnicki stunned
Olympiacos which cost a lot for the Greeks at the end – their qualification to
the F8 –, now it almost happened again. This time Olympiacos are in a much
better position and during the game they didn’t seem to have any trouble while
leading 4-8 at halftime. However, the Serbs raised their level, managed to
stage an amazing comeback, Lazar Dobozanov delivered a series of amazing saves,
the Kragujevac crowd went wild as Radnicki were on a 6-0 run and 10-8 up with
1:17 remaining. Still, the Greeks – not scoring for 15:02 minutes – could save
the game to a tie, thanks to a goal netted at 0:58, and another one at 0:07,
this last one by their Serbian leftie Filip Filipovic in a 7 on 6.
This was a day of Greek dramas as
Vouliagmeni came back from 7-9 down to beat Hannover by netting the last three
goals of the match. The Germans did a great job in the first half, led 7-8 but
were unable to score in the last 15 minutes. This victory has put Vouliagmeni
in a very promising position to clinch an F8 berth right on their first try.
As for the favourites, Recco faced
their easiest task in the main round, and they delivered the win over
bottom-ranked Dinamo in style. After a relatively slow start, the title-holders
won the middle two periods 10-1, also to entertain the public in Imperia. They
only missed to better the scoring record for the season, which stands at 21 and
they stopped at 20.
Barceloneta stormed to a 4-0 lead in
the first period, but uncharacteristically slowed down later and added only
four more in the remaining three periods. Jadran, which had spent 25 hours to
get to Barcelona from Split due to the ‘Lufthansa armageddon’, fought hard and
despite struggling with their man-ups (missed the first nine), they left the
pool with a modest 8-6 defeat.
No comments:
Post a Comment