Croatia beat Montenegro in preliminary round, Group B: Day two – European Water Polo Championships
Croatian team has beaten Montenegro in their second Men’s water polo game of Group ‘B’ on day two of the 2012 European Water Polo Championships in Eindhoven, Netherlands on Tuesday, January 17 at the Pieter van den Hoogenband Swim Stadium.
The Croatian squad continued their breath-taking efforts by winning their second bout of the game and has left no doubt about being one of the toughest teams of their group. They took over Montenegro with a 10-8 lead in the four quarter game.
Croatia proved its dominance in the first quarter, where they scored two consecutive goals in the first four minutes of the match. Their effort was levelled out by Montenegrin team in the next three minutes, but Croatia’s Andro Buslje scored a wonderful
goal for his team in the last five seconds of the round and Montenegro faced 3-2 deficit by the end of first round.
The second quarter started with the dominance of Croatian team that scored two goals in the initial three minutes of the round. Nevertheless, the situation got out of their hands and the Montenegrin squad took charge over the ball, scoring three goals in
a row and levelling the score to 5-all after halftime.
The third round saw both teams going head-to-head with each other but none of them succeeded in gaining lead. They continued their nerve-wrecking performance throughout the third quarter but both teams achieved three goals against each other and the score
went up to 8-all after the third round.
The fourth round was very decisive, where the Croatian squad managed to accomplish two goals and block all efforts of their challenging team. Their relentless efforts obstructed all struggles of Montenegrin squad as they failed to show any development on
their scorecard. The match ended with the clear win of Croatia by two goals and Montenegro lost its first match of the tournament.
Niksa Dobud of Croatia was declared player of the game as he contributed three imperative goals for his team. In addition, Croatia will now try to prove its ascendancy over Serbia in its third bout on Thursday, January 19.
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