Mighty Serbia dismantles Italy: Our dolphins "drown" the world champion and march on towards a medal

Photo: Profimedia/Angela WEISS/AFP

Serbian water polo players will play in the semifinals of the Olympic Games and fight for a medal after a convincing triumph over world champions Italy, 10-6 (5-2, 4-1, 0-1, 1-2).

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The reigning Olympic champions showed up when it was most needed, so with the triumph over the Italians, the Serbians got the chance to play against the Spaniards and won an opportunity to take revenge for a 13-12 defeat at the start of the games.

The first quarter was an ideal demonstration exercise of how an Olympic champion should play. Once again, head coach Dejan Savic masterfully inspired his players to provide perhaps the best performance since the beginning of the competition.

Led by the great goalkeeper Branislav Mitrovic, the Serbians strangled the Italians, and we only conceded two goals with a player down in the first quarter.

However, our team played efficiently and with diversity of ideas in the attack, so with two goals by Rasovic, and goals by Mandic, Filipovic and Dedovic, we gained a big three-goal advantage after the first quarter - 5-2.

In the second, we saw strong defenses on both sides, and the first goal only in the 5th minute when Dusan Mandic took Serbia to 6-2, and then Filipovic to 7-2 with a beautiful goal.

The Italians then reduced the lead to 7-3 in the seventh minute, but in the end got swept off by two goals by Andrija Prlainovic for a 9-3 at halftime - heralding who would make to  the semifinals.

Branislav Mitrovic; Photo: Tanjug/AP

The third quarter was just like the second (the first goal took as long as six minutes), with our players not scoring for eight minutes in, but they were also delighting us with excellent defensive play.

The Italians only overcame the excellent goalkeeper Mitrovic once, and while they had an extra man, so the game went to a break with a five-goal Serbia lead - 9-4.

In the last quarter, the only importan thing was for our squad to let time pass and finish the job. De Fulvio's goal was immediately annulled by Filipovic in the same minute for a 10-6, only to see a consolation goal in the seventh minute for the world champions, the Italians, who are going home without a medal after the 10-6 defeat at the hands of the Serbians.

Apart from Filipovic (3 goals) and Prilainovic (2), the scorers for our team were Dusan Mandic and Strahinja Rasovic (2 each), while Nikola Dedovic scored once.

Our guys are now facing a rematch on Friday with the Spaniards (the game starts at 12:50 pm), the European runners-up who now owe us something after beating us 13-12 last week. There is no better way to exact revenge than fight for a chance to play an Olympic final.

(Telegraf.rs)