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:
#1 14/11/2017 SRB vs ROU / CRO vs RUS / ESP vs NED
#2 12/12/2017 SRB vs MNE / GER vs RUS / NED vs HUN
#3 16/01/2018 MNE vs ROU / GER vs CRO / HUN vs ESP
#4 13/02/2018 ROU vs SRB / RUS vs CRO / NED vs ESP
#5 20/03/2018 MNE vs SRB / RUS vs GER / HUN vs NED
#6 10/04/2018 ROU vs MNE / CRO vs GER / ESP vs HUN
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.
Check out the 2018 Rules & Regulations & the Media Book
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).