Recently crowned FINA World League and European champion Montenegro was tossed by the roadside as top-eight positions were dished out in the men’s water polo competition at Foro Italico today.

The Montenegrins commanded for much of the second-round clash with Germany but saw the lead disappear in the final quarter, only to gain a grasping goal and push the game to extra time.
While Germany had the spunk to score in the first of two extra periods, Montenegro could not get any ball past former Russian goalkeeper Alexander TCHIGIR and succumbed to ignominy and a shot at ninth place at best.

Germany advanced to the quarter-finals and will play Group D winner United States of America on Tuesday.

Hagen Stamm, the former World Cup champion player and head coach of Germany said the match was a “piece of cake”.

“We were supposed to be the losers. Yesterday, our manager sent us a chocolate cake and we pretended that each slice was a player of Montenegro. We ate the whole cake and we enjoyed it. Perhaps the chocolate gave us the right motivation.”

Montenegrin head coach Petar Porobic was dismayed with the result. “It’s difficult to explain what happened. We had a lot of chances but we weren’t able to score enough. Germany fought until the end. We also were a bit unlucky but this is what sport is all about.”

The group 9-12 will be a powerful quartet in its own right with Montenegro being joined by Australia, China and Italy who went down to Serbia 7-5.

World No 8 Australia bowed to Romania 7-5 and Canada controlled China 9-5 in the other second-round encounters.

In the Group 13-16, Brazil nudged out South Africa 8-7 and Macedonia crushed Kazakhstan 11-4.

The women’s quarter-finals are being played on Monday with Hungary against Canada (14:00), Russia up against Olympic champion Netherlands (15:20), World Cup champion Australia taking on Greece (16:40) and Spain playing World League champion USA (21:00).