The German water polo players conceded their second defeat in the second game at the swimming world championships in Hungary and missed the knockout round prematurely. Two days after the 11:12 against Japan, the team of the new national coach Petar Porobic lost to the two-time world champion Croatia after a weak first half by 9:13 (1:4, 1:4, 2:2, 5:3).
Even before the final game in preliminary round group B on Saturday (7.30 p.m.) against Greece, who came second at the Olympics, the greatly rejuvenated German team is certain to be bottom of the group. For them it’s only about places 13 to 16 because the Greeks won 18:7 against Japan.
Lukas Küppers (3), Fynn Schütze (2), Denis Strelezkij (2), Mark Gansen and Zoran Bozic. The German team, which had originally missed out on qualifying for the World Championships, moved up due to the exclusion of the Russian athletes.
The Montenegrin Porobic had nominated nine debutants because many top performers such as Julian Real, Dennis Eidner or Tobias Preuss had resigned. In addition, Berlin’s Marko Stamm and Mateo Cuk are injured. There are only four players left of the team that reached the World Cup quarter-finals under Stamm three years ago.