With one month until the water polo
national team play gets underway, host cities for the opening tournaments and
Super Finals of the Men’s and Women’s World Aquatics Water Polo World Cup 2023
are now set:
WORLD AQUATICS MEN’S WATER POLO WORLD
CUP 2023
8-14 March
Men’s Water Polo World Cup, Division
1 Group A – Zagreb (CRO)
Men’s Water Polo World Cup, Division
1 Group B – Podgorica (MNE)
1-7 May
Water Polo World Cup, Division 2 Qualifier
– Berlin (GER)
30 June-2 July
Men’s Water Polo World Cup Final –
Los Angeles (USA)
WORLD AQUATICS WOMEN’S WATER POLO
WORLD CUP 2023
11-13 April
Women’s Water Polo World Cup,
Division 1 Group A and B – Rotterdam (NED)
19-21 April
Women’s Water Polo World Cup,
Division 1 Group A and B – Athens (GRE)
1-7 May
Water Polo World Cup, Division 2
Qualifier – Berlin (GER)
23-25 June
Women’s Water Polo World Cup Final –
Long Beach (USA)
First-time Super Final victors Italy
and Spain Look to Repeat as Champions in 2023
With the host cities confirmed, the
waters and teams the Italian men and Spanish women must navigate to defend
their 2022 global titles are now known for the upcoming season.
The Italian men come in looking to
recreate their magical 2022 season that saw them not only win their first-ever
Water Polo World Cup title by downing the United States 13-9 in last year’s
final but also played in the World Aquatics Championships gold medal game.
The Spanish women did what no other
team over the past decade could do – replace the United States atop a World
Cup, World Championship or Olympic medal podium – in taking their first-ever
World Cup title in the home waters of Santa Cruz de Tenerife last year.
It must be something about playing at
home: the Spanish women won their lone World Aquatics Championship also in
their home pool when Barcelona hosted that event in 2013.
Surf, Sun & Water Polo | Water
Polo World Cup Final Arrives in Southern California
With World Cup gold the crowning annual
glory for national team water polo play, defending champions Italy and Spain –
just like every other team – will need to earn their spot in the men’s and
women’s tournaments that both culminate in the USA’s most hallowed water polo
grounds: the greater Los Angeles County, California area.
The Women’s Water Polo World Cup
Final will take place in Long Beach, California at the Long Beach Sports Park
venue. The place couldn’t be better: it’s where the men’s and women’s Olympic
Water Polo Tournaments are set to take place alongside five other sports for
the #LA28 Games. The Long Beach area has it all, blending the urban
sophistication of a big city with the relaxed atmosphere of a beach resort.
The Men’s Water Polo World Cup Final
will take place in the heart of Los Angeles on the University of Southern
California campus. Water polo holds a special place on campus as USC student-athletes have won 17 national
university championships (NCAA) and is a talent pipeline for national water
polo teams.
Look for a focused and motivated Team
USA to factor prominently in both the men’s and women’s final standings. The
American men are a team on the rise, having played in the last two gold medal
matches of the tournament (losing 13-9 to Italy in 2022 and 9-8 to Montenegro
in 2020) but still searching for their first World Cup gold.
The Team USA women, meanwhile, look
to return to the undisputed top spot in the game. After winning three
consecutive Olympics, four World Aquatics Championships and six consecutive
Women’s Water Polo Super Final crowns over the last decade, the Americans
placed third in last year’s World Cup – the lone blemish to their run of
unprecedented excellence.
USA Water Polo CEO Christopher Ramsey
expressed his excitement about both the men’s and women’s finals being hosted
in Southern California.
"Holding the inaugural World Cup
Super Finals in Los Angeles and Long Beach in advance of the LA28 Olympic Games
is exciting for us," said Ramsey. "Water polo has always had a
special relationship with Southern California, which boasts the greatest
concentration of water polo athletes in the nation, and being able to share the
greatest athletes in our sport from around the world with our fan base here
should give everyone a little taste of what's to come in 2028. We are grateful
to World Aquatics for this opportunity and we look forward to hosting two truly
memorable competitions."
Host City Event Legacies
All seven of the host cities featured
in the Men’s and Women’s Water Polo World Cup 2023 season add to their water
polo event legacies this season.
Athens has held both the men’s and
women’s Super Final before, along with the Olympic Games Water Polo Tournament.
Berlin held both the men’s Super
Final and the Water Polo World Cup previously, along with the Olympic Water
Polo Tournament during the 1936 Games when only men competed on the sport's
Olympic stage.
Podgorica most recently held the
European final in 2022, in addition to the Men’s Youth Water Polo Championships
in 2016 and the World Cup Final in 2009.
Men’s teams looking to earn a final
spot in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics played in the Olympic Games Qualification
Tournament in Rotterdam while Zagreb held the Europa Cup Men’s Final in 2019.
Los Angeles and Long Beach have a
long history hosting top water polo competitions, including the Men’s Olympic
Water Polo Tournaments in 1932 and 1984, the Men’s and Women’s Water Polo World
Cup finals in 2004 and the Men’s Junior Water Polo Championships in 2007.
Water Polo World Cup Competition
System | How the 2023 Season Will Play Out
Men’s Water Polo World Cup 2023
Competition System
The men’s season-long tournament sees
12 teams divided into two groups – A and B – following the World Cup draw that
took place last December in Budapest, Hungary.
Group A: Italy, Japan, Croatia,
Hungary, France, United States of America
Group B: Serbia, Greece, Georgia,
Australia, Spain, Montenegro
The men’s tournament gets underway
from 8-14 March, with teams each playing one match against each other in the
round-robin format. Croatia will host Group A in Zagreb while Montenegro will
hold the Group B matches in Podgorica.
The top three teams from both Groups
A and B will qualify for the World Cup finals in Los Angeles (USA).
Each match will be scored on a
3-2-1-0 basis. Winning in regular time earns a team 3 points; winning in a
penalty shootout earns a team 2 points; a loss in a penalty shootout scores a
team 1 point; a loss in regular time earns zero points for a team.
All matches will be played until
there’s a winner. If a game ends regulation time in a tie, a penalty shootout
with five players alternating shots against the opposing goalkeeper from the
penalty mark ensues. The two teams alternate shots on opposing goals and each
shot must be taken by a different player.
If, after five penalties the score is
still tied, the shootout enters sudden death. The penalties continue through
one back-and-forth at a time in the original order of the shooters. The first
team to have an advantage after a round between both teams wins.
If two teams are tied at the end of
the five-game tournament, World Aquatics World Cup rules apply to determine the
final ranking order.
Women’s Water Polo World Cup 2023
Competition System
The women’s competition system
differs slightly as eight teams play in two groups:
Group A: Greece, Netherlands,
Hungary, Australia
Group B: Spain, United States of
America, Italy, China
The first round of women’s
tournaments will take place from 11-13 April in Rotterdam (NED), followed by
the second round in Athens (GRE) from 19-21 April.
The first tournament follows the
round-robin format with each team playing three matches against their group
opponents. Following the same match-scoring methodology as the men, the top two
teams in both Group A and B will place for the top four positions in the second
tournament in Athens.
With six teams qualifying for the
Women’s World Cup final, the top four teams from the first tournament phase
will have guaranteed their teams a place in the Los Angeles phase of the
tournament. However, the Athens results matter as a team’s final standings out
of phase two of the tournament determine their seeding for the three-day final
in Southern California.
For the teams that finish third and
fourth in the first tournament round in Rotterdam, here’s where things get
interesting: these four teams will be battling it out in the second tournament
phase for the final two spots in the World Cup final. The event in Athens once
again follows the three-match round-robin style, only teams play the
bottom-half ranked opponents from the opening phase of the tournament. The two
top teams from this tier of teams also will qualify to play in Long Beach
(USA), qualifying for the final tournament phase as the fifth and sixth-seeded
teams.
Water Polo World Cup Tournament
History
Formerly known as the FINA Water Polo
World League, the annual international water polo tournament for national teams
began in 2002 for men and in 2004 for women.
Serbia leads the all-time nations
list with 10 titles, it's last coming in 2019 during a home final in Belgrade.
Italy comes in as the aforementioned defending champion, while Montenegro won
the tournament in 2020. Due to the global pandemic, no Water Polo World Cup
season was played in 2021.
In the women’s tournament, the United
States won the event’s first edition in Long Beach (USA) in 2004 and with the
tournament headed back to the same place this year, the Americans will be going
for their record-extending 15th Women’s Water Polo World Cup gold. Four other
teams have won the women’s tournament: Greece (2005), Russia (2008), China
(2013), and Spain (2022).
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