What a story he had
to tell! This will rate as one of the best matches in Barcelona and the
huge crowd was delivered a clinical match played by champions. Serbia
came from 2-0 behind and 3-2 down at the quarter to level the game at
3-3. Filipovic scored two of those goals and his joy was evident for all
to see.
Hungary levelled at 4-4 but had the 7-5 halftime advantage. It went out to 8-5 but sat at 9-7 by the final break after Hungary dragged it back to 8-7.
Slobodan
Nikic, with the second of his three drag-back, extra-man goals from the
right post and Andrija Prlainovic from the penalty line, took the match
to four goals at 6:52 in the fourth period. The result was looking
serious for Hungary.
Norbert Madaras and Denes Varga, with his third,
quickly changed the landscape with swift goals for 11-9 at 4:22 and
then Balasz Harai continued the dream run at 3:37.
Serbia was not to
be denied the prospect of maintaining a winning run against Hungary at
FINA World Championships with Stefan Mitrovic sending in a
centre-forward backhand above the goalkeeper’s head at 3:05.
Then
came that third Nikic goal from the right post on extra to close the
match at 13-10 with just a little more than a minute remaining. Filipovic’s
celebrations then took hold as the team looks forward to delivering him
his 20th international medal on Saturday week.
Marton Szivos scored
twice in the match, but official statistics incorrectly awarded one goal
to Krisztian Bedo after a controversy about whether Szivos’ blast from
outside had actually gone into the goal. Television replays clearly
showed it had, much to the relief of the large Hungarian supporter base.
{youtube}7OhY3-NEH7E{/youtube}
Match 12: 13:30, Group C, SERBIA 13 HUNGARY 10
Quarters: 2-3, 5-2, 2-2, 4-3
Referees: Boris Margeta (SLO), Radoslaw Koryzna (POL)
Extra Man: SRB: 7/10. HUN: 7/11.
Pens: SRB: 1/1.
Teams:
SERBIA: Branislav Mitrovic, Dusan Mandic (1), Zivko Gocic, Vanja Udovicic (1), Milos Cuk (1), Dusko Pijetlovic (1), Slobodan Nikic (3), Milan Aleksic, Nikola Radjen, Filip Filipovic (2), Andrea Prlainovic (3), Stefan Mitrovic (1), Gojko Pijetlovic. Head Coach: Dejan Savic.
HUNGARY: Viktor Nagy, Miklos Gor-Nagy, Norbert Madaras (2), Bence Batori, Marton Vamos (2), Norbert Hosnyanszky, Adam Decker, Marton Szivos (1), Daniel Varga, Denes Varga (2), Krisztian Bedo (1), Balazs Harai (1), Attila Decker. Head Coach: Tibor Benedek.
FLASH QUOTES:
Filip Filipovic (SRB) — On the birth of his child today:
“I have left this game a true winner as I am now a father. Sorry, this is a very emotional moment for me (crying).”
Branislav Mitrovic (SRB):
“We wanted to be first in our group so this was a very good game. Playing Hungary is always hard, but we can do better in the next game against China. This is my debut game as goalkeeper for a World Championship and I am very excited to be here.”
Andrija Prlainovic (SRB):
“We now have the first place in our group, but this is only the start for us and doesn´t have to mean anything when it comes to medals. I would like to congratulate Filip Filipovic on the birth of his son during this game.”
Dejan Savic (SRB Head Coach):
“We started the match badly, we were not concentrated on the game, but in the second quarter we picked up our rhythm. There were many exclusions and that is what decided the winner.”
Adam Decker (HUN):
“It was a very tight game of high level of play, but we had too many mistakes in defence to be able to win this game. We had too many exclusions. Six against six players we had our chance. We struggled a lot to draw the game, but it hasn’t been possible today. We hope we can have our revenge against Serbia in the final of the World championships. I’m still very confident about the rest of the competition.”
Miklos Fereno Gor-nagy (HUN):
“We started well, but at the end they got confident and this was the key to the match. We have more important games and we much work on our defence for them.”
Attila Decker (HUN):
“We were expecting a hard and physical match. Our mistake is that we do not have control when we had extra players.”
Tibor Benedek (HUN Head Coach):
“To play against Serbia in the second group game is never easy. We changed our tactics but we still did not beat them. If we face them again in the tournament I hope we can do better.”