Greek Water Polo Team Advances to World Cup Finals After Thrilling Victory Over Japan

The Greek men's h2o polo squad has successfully secured its spot successful the last circular of the World Cup, acceptable to instrumentality spot successful Kotor, Montenegro, from April 11 to 13. In a gripping quarter-final lucifer of the first-division qualifying circular held successful Otopeni, Romania, the nationalist squad overcame Japan with a decisive 20-16 victory, acknowledgment to a singular second-half performance.

Under the guidance of manager Thodoris Vlachos, the Greek squad has made an awesome stride towards the World Cup Super Final. They are acceptable to look Hungary successful the semi-finals tomorrow, January 11, astatine 17:30. Hungary secured their spot by defeating Georgia with a commanding 21-10 triumph earlier successful the tournament.

The brushwood against Japan proved challenging for Greece, arsenic the Asian champions came retired strong, taking an aboriginal 5-2 lead. Japanese subordinate Yosuke Inaba was peculiarly relentless, uncovering the nett from region and putting unit connected Greek goalkeepers Panagiotis Tzortzatos and Manos Zerdevas. However, Greece fought backmost with determination, scoring 3 unanswered goals successful the past ninety seconds of the archetypal period, leveling the crippled astatine 5-5.

With standout performances from players specified arsenic Konstantinos Argyropoulos and Dimitrios Papanastasiou, Greece managed to borderline up for the archetypal clip with an 8-7 advantage. The archetypal fractional concluded dramatically with Japan regaining the pb 10-9 aft a VAR-reviewed penalty.

In the 2nd half, Greece capitalized connected Japan's diminished gait and attempts to play a much accepted game. A dominating 5-0 tally successful the 3rd play widened the spread to 14-10, and by the clip the 4th ended, Greece had established a coagulated 16-11 lead. The Greek squad extended their pb to 19-11 astatine 1 constituent earlier Japan rallied with a 5-0 run. The last people of 20-16 successful favour of Greece reflects the team's resilience and strategical adjustments.

The play scores were 5-5, 4-5, 7-1, and 4-5. Referees for the lucifer were Margeta from Slovenia and Berishvili from Georgia.

Team Line-ups:

Greece (Coach: Thodoris Vlachos): Zerdevas, Genidounias 4, Skoumpakis 2, Giouvetzis, Argyropoulos 4, Papanastasiou 4, Gillis 3, Kalogeropoulos, Alafragkis, Kakaris, Nikolaidis 2, Chalyvopoulos 1, Tzortzatos, Kourouvanis

Japan (Coach: Yoshinori Shiota): Nishimura, Adachi 1, Watanabe 1, Yamamoto, Suzuki 2, Date 2, Takata 2, Nita, Inaba 6, Ogihara, Araki 1, Sasano, Katayama 1, Moriya

As they beforehand to the adjacent stage, the Greek squad remains focused connected achieving the champion imaginable ranking successful the upcoming Super Final.