Hungary v Italy 5-10

Tamas Marcz, head coach, Hungary:
“Obviously I’m not happy with this result though I think it might not mirror the real difference between the teams. Today Italy played much better, we wasted a lot of chances and couldn’t maintain a good level in defence either. What I liked, however, that our young players didn’t stop even when the game seemed to be decided as Italy led by multiple goals. It was also a good occasion for all our young players to see what they should do and cannot do at this level. It was a game which clearly showed some mistakes we have to avoid on the future, so now every member of the team could see that we have to a work an awful lot before the European Championships.”

Alessandro Campagna, head coach, Italy:
“Let me say that the game yesterday was our jolly-joker occasion, which you can use once over the years when you show a totally bad performance. I was satisfied with the game today though we sill had a lot of mistakes but at this stage of the year it’s something almost all teams have to face. This game was much better, we played organised and focused and with a good spirit. You know, this is a new team and it takes time to build a really good one. Good teams are not coming up by chance, suddenly, from nowhere. You need a lot of work, dedication and patience to be ready for the top level.”

Croatia v Montenegro 10-5

Ivica Tucak, head coach, Croatia:
“It was a different game than yesterday and I’m happy that we won with a fine performance and will have the chance to play for the medals. This match also brought a couple of mistakes we cannot commit against Serbia tomorrow if we wish to go for the gold on Sunday. We need to improve our extramen, and have to be even more focused in defence. While I was satisfied with our defence today, still, we got two-three easy goals, we have to avoid these for sure against the Serbs.”

Vladimir Gojkovic, head coach, Montenegro:
“We played with the two best teams of the current field so these two days weren’t easy for this young team. Congratulations for Croatia, they were better today. Though we created some chances but missed many while their two strong centre-forwards caused a lot of trouble for us. We had the 6 on 5s but against Croatia it’s not easy to score as they have a lot of tall guys in the water and they defend quite well in these situations. We have to work a lot on our game.”

Serbia v France 13-2

Dejan Savic, head coach, Serbia:
“It was an incredible game for us.”

Nenad Vukanic, head coach, France:
“We played a bit better than yesterday, more focused, more aggressively. Still, it wasn’t easy for us, on the first day we played with the world champion, now with the Olympic champion. For a while we managed to stay close but they can accelerate so quickly and our team finds it hard to cope with this. Still, we are happy to be here and to have these games against such great teams. We use this occasion as a very good learning experience.”

Spain v Greece 7-6

David Martin, head coach, Spain:
“We are very happy to finish first, we played another very good game. We started well, then Greece switched to a tough pressing game which caused us some problems but we managed to adjust and win the match. I’m satisfied with my team’s performance, especially what we did in defence.”

Theodoros Vlachos, head coach, Greece:
“This game wasn’t close at all, the Spanish were the better team today. The players are in the middle of the season, they play a lot, they are under pressure both physically and mentally. Now I saw the signs of that right from the beginning, they couldn’t make the right choices in the attacks, couldn’t modify anything which would have given the game a different direction.”

6 April 2018