2018 FINA Water Polo World Leagues begins in Europe

Posted on 13th November 2017

 

The European preliminary rounds of the FINA Men’s Water Polo World League 2018 kick-off tomorrow on Tuesday November 14 across various European cities.

The groups’ composition of the European tournament unfolds as follow:

GROUP A: ROU, MNE, SRB

GROUP B: CRO, GER, RUS

GROUP C: ESP, HUN, NED

Romania will first play Serbia in Zrenjainin (SRB), Croatia will welcome the Russians in Zadar (CRO) and the Netherlands will face the Spanish, who didn’t play in last year’s World League, in Malaga (ESP).

The European preliminaries will be played in six rounds, following this calendar from November 2017 to April 2018:

 

Round Date Group A Group B Group C
#1 14/11/2017 SRBvsROU CROvsRUS ESPvsNED
#2 12/12/2017 SRBvsMNE GERvsRUS NEDvsHUN
#3 16/01/2018 MNEvsROU GERvsCRO HUNvsESP
#4 13/02/2018 ROUvsSRB RUSvsCRO NEDvsESP
#5 20/03/2018 MNEvsSRB RUSvsGER* HUNvsNED
#6 10/04/2018 ROUvsMNE CROvsGER ESPvsHUN


*to be played on March 6, 2018

After the conclusion of these six rounds, the four best teams will be qualified for the Super Final to be held from June 18–23 2018. They will be then joined by four other teams selected from the Intercontinental Tournaments.

Team Serbia, who are the current Olympic title holders, have grabbed the World League title consecutively since 2013, while Italy and Croatia secured the silver and bronze medals respectively in 2017.

Croatia won the World Championships tournament, ahead of Hungary and Serbia, last summer in Budapest (HUN).