August 31, 2022 - The Croatia women's water polo team defeated Romania 15:6 in the 3rd round of the European Championships in Split and secured a historic quarterfinal spot at the tournament! 

After beating Germany 15-8, Croatia claimed another huge win, netting 15 goals again, this time against Romania. This result likely sends them to the quarterfinals for the first time in history.

Head coach Aljosa Kunac called for a time-out after just 3:03 minutes – with 0-0 on the scoreboard. Then, in just 2:40 minutes, Croatia led 4-0, scoring from four straight possessions. Another 4-1 quarter followed the first, and Croatia led 8-2 at halftime.

The second half continued on the same path. With this second win, Croatia secured their spot in the quarterfinals – a historical result for the hosts as they couldn't achieve the same in their previous three appearances.

“We needed him to achieve this historical result (holding his baby boy on his arm). Seriously, I had to call that time-out as the players started taking shots from everywhere without setting up anything; they thought it was just about shooting and once they’d score. I told them to stop this; we have a plan, stick to that, and play according to it as a team. It turned out that it was worth listening to me, the plan worked, so we are really happy now," said Croatia coach Aljosa Kunac. 

In the 4th round, Croatia will play against Hungary, and they still have Greece.

"We have done our job, but we do not intend to stop there. There will be more games in the battle for 5th to 8th place where we can look for another victory. The first task before us is preparing for Hungary, our next opponent. We will prepare as best as possible, try not to make a big difference, and for the girls to play it without stress."

“First, I would like to congratulate the whole team as this victory truly was a team effort. Today was my day; I scored 4/5, but five players plus the goalkeeper worked hard so the sixth player could score, and today that was me. I am proud of everything we have done so far. We did everything we said we would before coming here. Only the first match with the Netherlands didn’t go as planned, but that was normal. It was our first official game together, and the pressure of playing at home in this great arena made an impact. We will now try and prepare for Hungary and give our best again," said player Matea Skelin.

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January 21, 2020 - The Croatia women’s water polo team ended their European Championship campaign in Budapest in 10th place. 

Namely, our women's side lost in the match for 9th place to Israel. 

This is the highest-ranking of the Croatia women’s team in competitions so far. Recall, in the previous two competitions (Belgrade 2016 and Barcelona 2018), they finished 11th place, and in Zagreb 2010, they finished 8th place, though there were only that many teams in the competition. 

Israel has made more progress in the last 3-4 years and proved it in the pool on Tuesday. Croatia even led the opening 10-12 minutes of the match, though to a minimum (1:0, 2:1, 3:2), which was followed by a series of Israel goals. By the end of the second quarter, Israel was up 3:7, and ended the game at 7:11.

The second quarter was decisive as Croatia allowed six goals and scored just two. The other quarters ended in a tie 11-7(1-1, 6-2, 2-2, 2-2).

Dina Lordan was the best for Croatia with two goals, while Emma Miljkovic, Ema Carevic, Matea Skelin, Domina Butic and Petra Bukic scored one each.

Croatian goalkeeper Aleksandra Ratkovic defended seven of 16 shots against Croatia's goal and Natasha Trojan Jimenez registered four defenses. Avelet Perese defended nine of 16 shots against Israel's door.

“At the end of the whole tournament for us, I can be relatively pleased. Six or seven national teams are substantially better than us in quality, Slovakia ran through us and we were not good there. We had a good start against Israel, and then we fell terribly,” water polo coach Marijo Ćaleta said.

“What we are missing is a larger number of players, a more modest choice purely quantitatively and this difference is visible,” he added.

The women’s team traveled back to Croatia after the match against Israel. 

Source: HVS

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