GROUP A. GREECE vs JAPAN 10-9

In a repeat of the Rio 2016 rumble, Greece beat Japan by a single goal — 10-9 — in their Group A match.

It came down to the last 32 seconds when Stylianos Argyropoulos, playing in his 100th international, converted extra-man attack after a timeout.

"It’s a disappointment. We sensed the frustration we were causing Greece with our style of play. This was a game we could have won, but we just couldn’t score the goals when we should have.”
By Yusuke Inaba (JPN) — Two Goals

The match was a see-saw event and Japan planned it that way. This was the match it engineered to win first and  then target South Africa on the last group day to advance to the quarters. The score was tied at one, three, four, five, six, eight and nine. At 5-5 by halftime and then 6-6 four minutes later, Greece took a one-goal advantage into the final quarter. It went to 8-6 thanks to Marios Kapotsis for his third strike.

A minute later, Seiya Adachi drilled one from the top for his third and Kenta Araki received a cross pass to the left-post position on extra for 8-8. Konstantinos Genidounias scored the 9-8 goal from deep left just inside the three-minute mark for his third and 10th in his Olympic career.

Japan called a timeout at 1:13 and 16 seconds later, Atsushi Arai had the Japanese volunteers screaming when he converted extra. Greece took a timeout at 0:46 and Argyropoulos has his second goal in Tokyo and affirmed Greece’s unbeaten standing.

Alexandros Papanastasiou was given his marching orders near the end of the second quarter, allegedly mouthing off at the referee, but might be allowed to participate in the next match. In fact, two other Greeks were excluded on three fouls and one Japanese.

Japan almost got it right by swimming the Greeks to a standstill and constantly getting the extra-player situation because a Greek player was trailing. However, many of those situations were unrewarded through lack of action more than poor shooting.

However, Japan was all energy, swarming over the Greeks and darting everywhere to make opportunities.

Greece has a one-goal win over Hungary and a draw with Italy to go with tonight’s victory, and now needs to sweep aside South Africa and United States of America to have any chance of group dominance.

Match 13, 18:20, Group A, GREECE 10 JAPAN 9
Quarters: 1-1, 4-4, 2-1, 3-3.
Referees: Adrian Alexandrescu (ROU), Voijin Putnikovic (SRB).
Shots: GRE: 10/30. JPN: 9/28.
Extra Man: GRE: 6/9. JPN: 3/14.
Pens: JPN: 1/1.

FLASH QUOTES

Georgios Dervisis (GRE) — Centre Back
“For us, it was a very important match as we wanted the two points to help us reach the quarterfinals. Japan is a really good team. They play really aggressive and very fast water polo. It’s very difficult to play against Japan. They use a very strange and new way of playing. You won’t see this style of play used by any of the other teams, so it’s really tough to adapt and to play against them. In the end, we were able to stick to our plan, and thankfully it was enough to get the win."

Yoji Omoto (JPN) — Head Coach
“We knew that if we lost today we would not be in the finals. No tie, we had to win. We definitely tried to win the game, but we missed some goals. In Rio (2016) we also lost by a goal to Greece. They must have been prepared for us. Our first target was to make the quarterfinals and at the same time we had to beat the best European teams. We will now focus on beating Italy, the world champion.”

Yusuke Shimizu — Centre Forward
“I am quite regretful,” he said of the loss. “We were able to keep up with our opponents. In the first couple of games we were down but we kept up today. There were two things. One was to convert our counterattack goals and the other was to play better defence.”

GROUP B: SERBIA v AUSTRALIA  — 14-8

Serbia’s Olympic title defence is back on track after a stunning 10-1 first-half annihilation of Australia, cruising to a 14-8 victory in Group B.

It comes on the back of a loss to Spain on day one and a thumping of Kazakhstan on Tuesday. The Aussie Sharks,  on the other hand, came off a big victory over Croatia and were buoyed by that occasion. Perhaps too much.

Aussie Sharks head coach Elvis Fatovic, who finishes his contract after Tokyo, said his team “failed to turn up at the pool”. That “non-attendance” puts in jeopardy its advancement to the quarterfinals.

Serbia was in scintillating form with a 10-1 first half that allowed it the luxury of a laid-back second half, letting Australia win the two periods 7-4. At halftime, the match was already over as a spectacle, especially coming so close after the Greece-Japan matinee.

Serbia was all force, aggressive and stood up when it counted as head coach Dejan Savic left the pool knowing that he had pulled his team back into contention.

It was Filip Filipovic (in his 655th international), it was Dusan Mandic, it was Strahinja Rasovic, it was Andrija Prlainovic, it was every Serbian player who knew that his reputation and that of his country was on the line.

The small band of Australian supporters from the Olympic team was disappointed in the first half and strengthened in the second, but, alas, the resurgence was too late.

It leaves Aussie Sharks captain Aaron Younger stating that Spain is more suited to Australia’s style. A second win, against Kazakhstan on August 2 might not be enough in a group tainted with disappointment.

Once Australia decided to penetrate Serbia’s fantastic defensive screen, the goals started flowing with only Blake Edwards netting twice in the eight goals.

The extra-man count favoured Serbia and Australia had one penalty attempt blocked, which also hurt, although that was early in the second quarter when the Sharks were trailing 7-0.

All in all, it was Serbia’s night and a potent lesson to the pretenders that Serbia cannot be taken lightly.

Match 12, 18:50, Group B, SERBIA 14 AUSTRALIA 8
Quarters: 6-0, 4-1, 1-2, 3-5
Referees: Frank Ohme (GER), Georgios Stavridis (GRE).
Shots: SRB: 14/25. AUS: 8/32.
Extra Man: SRB: 6/7. AUS: 4/9.
Pens: SRB: 1/1. AUS: 1/2.

 FLASH QUOTES

Dejan Savic (SRB) — Head Coach
“We had good rhythm for three parts of the game, so that was the secret to winning today, and playing on extra man. We were good on extra man and very aggressive on defence. That’s all.”

Dusan Mandic (SRB) — Four Goals
"This is exactly what we needed. How we approached this game was excellent. Our defence was really aggressive and we played with a lot of confidence. That gave our team a lot of strength and gave great belief to our goalkeeper. The first half was almost perfect. We played really intense defence and we were really organised. We were also really concentrated on every pass, on every shot and in every block. This is how we need to play, as you can see what's going on in our group, it's going to be a battle until the end."

Elvis Fatovic (AUS) — Head Coach
“That result we didn’t deserve. We are better than that. We didn’t turn up to the pool, especially on defence. We lost two or three goals in the first half and then we had to play catch-up. I’m just hoping that we turn up for the match against Spain (on Saturday).”

Aaron Younger (AUS) — Captain
“Definitely, obviously not what we wanted coming into the first half. Obviously a terrible start in every facet. The second half, we definitely lifted our heads and changed our game. But we’ll have to go through it and obviously Spain is a very different team to Serbia. So we’ll be evaluating and preparing for the game a bit differently. There’s definitely a lot to take out of this game today, and definitely maybe a bit of a wake-up call for the boys to get ready for that next game and realise how hard it’s going to be to get through to the next stage. We match up quite well with Spain, they suit our style a bit better so I think our chances going into the Spanish game are better than this one.”