Here are the highlights of the
Opening Press Conference, held in Belgrade.
Kyriakos Giannopoulos, LEN
Vice-President, Bureau Liaison for Water Polo “We are happy to be here in
Belgrade. On behalf of LEN and our President Antonio Silva, I’d like to welcome all participating teams and thank for
their efforts in this season. I’m sure we will enjoy a great tournament in the next three days. Let me
thank for the organisers and all partners for their support which made it possible to have this great
event here in Belgrade.”
Dejan Perisic, Secretary, LEN
Technical Water Polo Committee
“First of all, I’d like to
congratulate for all teams present for making the Final Eight. LEN and the
water polo family is really grateful for
the organisers, for the local municipality and for all who offered its support to stage this event here in Belgrade.
I’m sure we will enjoy a great tournament with great matches as we have the best players and the
best clubs here.”
Marco Birri, LEN Operational Manager
“This is the coronation of the season
as we have a quality field here. Six of the eight teams already won European trophies and not only just once but
multiple times. Also, seven of the eight participating clubs just won its respective national championship
– only Brescia did not, but because lost to the other Italian participant,
Recco – it’s also a demonstration that we have the best sides here. And they
represent
quality as seven of them were here
last year as well. We have more TV interest than a year ago, we have new broadcasters and we expect great numbers
for our live streaming.”
Edvin Calderara, assistant coach,
Brescia
“OK, we are aware that Brescia is the
only team which did not arrive here as the national champion, but we still expect to win this tournament. At
the same time, we also know that even our first game will already be challenging against Hannover. But
we are motivated to make the semi-final as we did last year.”
Djordje Lazic, player, Brescia
“We are aware that our quarter-final
is a hard game and I’m sure it’s going to be a great match. On paper, we are the favourites, but we need to
stay calm and focused.”
Karsten Seehafer, coach, Hannover
“We are in celebratory mood after
winning the German championship and we also know that we are the underdogs here but don’t forget, in a single
game anything can happen. We finished two days earlier than Brescia, so we had more time to recover,
and we could also watch the Italian league final and analysed our rival. I
think we know what we want to do, then let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
16.30 Pro Recco (ITA) v Zodiac
Atletic Barceloneta (ESP)
Sandro Sukno, coach, Recco
“We are not tired after this hard
series of finals with Brescia. As a coach I should say that I’m happy to have such challenging series of games. After
the tense final, now we are waiting this tournament. It’s going to be a really hard match against
Barceloneta, I would say that had the best spring in Europe among the teams. At this phase of the season,
a coach can only help to its team and cannot do miracles.”
Aleksandar Ivovic, player, Recco
“We had a very difficult series of
games against Brescia, but we are ready. For us, it’s a good sign to start with Barceloneta. Whenever we played
against them, we can all remember we had a good ending. Seven years ago, we met them on the first
day, beat them, won the tournament. Last year we met in the semis, beat them, won the tournament. This is
the coronation of the season and I think we can have an even bigger success than last year as we won
the domestic league, and we can win this trophy again. To achieve that, we need to play with cold head
and concentrated, this is the only way to be successful and win this tournament.”
Elvis Fatovic, coach, Barcelona
“It is true we had some problems
during the season, mostly in the pandemic phase when other teams struggled too. Later on, we had a good series
of games, and you can also remember that last year the team also had some fine matches here. We had
a very difficult group, great teams couldn’t make it to
the Final Eight, so we are happy to
be back. As for our quarter-final, we respect Recco, but we are also confident.”
Dani Lopez, player, Barceloneta
“Now we are like underdogs, and I’d
say that our big goal to be here has already been achieved. We just wish to enjoy being here and do our best. If
we really do, we can cause problems to Recco, I guess.”
18.30 Olympique Marseille (FRA) v
Novi Beograd (SRB)
Milos Scepanovic, coach, Marseille
“If you say Marseille is unique
because of the great number of players from this region, I’d say that almost every team has players from here. I
hope that the team will reach its best level here and we can play the same water polo we have been able to
do in this season.”
Igor Kovacevic, player, Marseille
“I think we’ve matured a lot since
last year. Our team is a good mix of French and foreign players and it’s great to be here in New Belgrade. This
tournament is going to be more interesting and challenging now as spectators can finally come in.”
Igor Milanovic, coach, Novi Beograd
“Here all the matches will be
difficult. We are ready and self-confident as we play without any
pressure. We had pressure in the
domestic championship and in the Regional League where the expectations
were high and clear. Here we don’t have
the same so we are full of optimism and I’m sure we will have success. It’s already one that the pool will
be full of fans as I know.”
Dusan Mandic, player, Novi Beograd
“I put the last season behind me, and
we are looking into the future. We go step by step and as our coach said we play without pressure. We had a
nice result in the Serbian league and now we face Marseille. We know their strength and we are
aware what their team is capable of, so we need to bring our very best to the pool.”
20.30 FTC-Telekom Budapest (HUN) v
Jug Adriatic Osiguranje Dubrovnik (CRO)
Zsolt Varga, coach, Ferencvaros
“First of all, we are glad to be
here, this season has been extremely hard for us, for months we played with one centre-forward, health issues hit
key players before important matches. In a season, for which we changed five core players, our goal was
building the team and I think despite all the setbacks we managed to reach a good level. The team is
getting ready for this tournament, the game against Jug will be hard, they were in the same shoe, kind of
reshaping their team, they had ups and downs but recently played better and better and they were the
only ones who could beat Recco.”
Denes Varga, player, Ferencvaros
“We came here with a great
satisfaction based on the results already achieved this season. Still, now
we have a chance to put a crown on our
run. We are aware of the strengths of Jug, and we focus solely on that game and look no further. This time we
have no pressure on us, so we belong to this circle here in this company, we just want to enjoy the
event. And at last, it’s great to have the spectators back – and it’s even better that we can play in front of
spectators.” No quotes from Jug as they haven’t arrived to Belgrade yet.
Quarter-finals, 2 June
14.30 AN Brescia (ITA) v Waspo 98
Hannover (GER)
16.30 Pro Recco (ITA) v Zodiac
Atletic Barceloneta (ESP)
18.30 CN Marseille (FRA) v Novi
Beograd (SRB)
20.30 FTC-Telekom Budapest (HUN) v
Jug Adriatic Osiguranje Dubrovnik (CRO)
Semi-finals, 3 June
14.30 Crossover for 5-8th places
16.30 Crossover for 5-8th places
18.30 Semi-final: Brescia/Hannover v
Marseille/Novi B.
20.30 Semi-final: Recco/Barceloneta v
FTC/Jug
Final Round, 4 June
12.00 For the 7-8th place
14.00 For the 5-6th place
17.00 Bronze medal match
19.30 Champions League Final
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