Game 48, 21.00, men, MACEDONIA 5 ITALY 12

Friday, 24 July 2009 21:00

Referees: Nenad PERIS (CRO), Erhan TULGA (TUR).

Quarters: 2-3, 0-3, 3-3, 0-3

Teams:

MACEDONIA: Dalibor PERCINIC, Anastas BELEV, Ivan VUKSANOVIC, Dimitar STOYCEV, Nebojsa MILIC (3), Dimitar DIMOVSKI, Marko MICIC, Dimitar STOYCEV, Marko MICIC, Vladimir KRECKAVIC, Dusan KRSTIC (1), Marko BASIC, Nenad PETROVIC, Daniyel BENIC (1), Milos UROSEVIC. Head Coach: Stevan NONKOVIC.
ITALY: Stefano TEMPESTI, Federico MISTRANGELO, Alex GIORGETTI (1), Fabrizio BUONOCORE, Valentino GALLO (3), Maurizio FELUGO (1), Andrea MANGIANTE (1), Valerio RIZZO (1), Niccolo FIGARI, Alessandra CALCATERRA, Matteo AICARDI (2), Goran FIORENTINI (3), Tommaso NEGRI. Head Coach: Alessandra CAMPAGNA.

Italy took time to get its act together and finally please an adoring home crowd with a first win of the championship. It means Italy heads to the second round and a clash with Serbia for advancement to the top eight. The biggest crowd of the week saw Italy take just a one-goal lead at quarter time and then kept Macedonia scoreless in the second quarter. If Italy didn’t have a penchant with shooting wide or an addiction with the wood, he score could have been much higher. The third quarter was high quality water polo from both teams while the fourth saw Italy pleasing the crowd with counters but fewer goals.