To the 5 remaining people who are still reading after seeing the title of this post welcome! It is the 2011 World Aquatics championships from China and we have an amazing match-up in water polo today. Juggernaut Hungary meets Juggernaut Serbia, the unstoppable force vs. the immovable object (feel free to add your own ‘two great teams going head to head’ cliché here). To put this Serbia-Hungary game into perspective for the North American audience that may or may not be reading; this matchup is like Rocky Balboa vs. Ivan Drago, Red-Sox Yankees, and Celtics Lakers. There is little doubt that these 2 teams are the best in the sport (a quick glance at their respective Wikipedia pages gives us the following count: In the last 10 years Serbia and Hungary have won 25 and 17 medals!) Those statistics are not from bush-league competitions either; they include the World championships, European championships, the water-polo world league and the Olympics. Although Serbia has the edge in overall gold medals and total medals, Hungary boasts an amazing Olympic record (3 straight gold medals). In addition to the medals, Serbia has named the men’s water polo team ‘Serbian team of the year’ for 9 years running. Now that you know the background of this matchup we will get right into the running diary. As I write this I will explain things as best I can to the people out there who have no idea how water polo is played. Why am I writing this? Several reasons: Firstly, I am currently on vacation in Serbia, so this game will be easily available to watch. Second, I really like water polo and this is a great opportunity to practice writing running diaries. Lastly, I wanted to write this for fun and see how it goes (I’m also a huge nationalist).
The basics: 2 teams compete in an Olympic sized swimming pool. Each side fields (pools?) 6 players plus 1 goalie. There are 4 8-minute quarters, and the object of the game is to score goals by putting a ball into the opposing teams net. For the complete set of rules please go here.
10:45am (Serbian time): We begin! Obligatory shots of both teams warming up, and the shots of the coaches. These are a staple of any sports broadcast. The announcer is saying some background stuff about how the teams got here, what a big rivalry this is etc.
10:48 There’s something odd about watching teams huddle up in water.
