The German water polo players also lost their third preliminary round game at the swimming world championships in Hungary. The team of new national coach Petar Porobic lost 8:16 (1:4, 1:5, 2:4, 4:3) to Greece, who came second at the Olympics, and finished last in Group B in Debrecen with zero points.
Even before the game, the heavily rejuvenated German team had missed the knockout stages. For them it’s only a question of places 13 to 15, the first opponent in the placement round is Brazil on Monday (5:00 p.m.).
Canada had withdrawn its team after several positive corona tests. The worst World Cup performance so far was 14th place in 2001, but in 2015 and 2017 the selection of the German Swimming Association (DSV) missed out on participating in the World Cup.
Zoran Bozic (2), Denis Strelezkij, Fynn Schütze, Maurice Jüngling, Mark Gansen, Ferdinand Korbel and Phillip Kubisch scored the goals for the German team, which is going through a change in personnel under the successor to long-time national coach Hagen Stamm.
The Montenegrin Porobic had nominated nine debutants because many top performers had resigned. There are only four players left of the team that reached the World Cup quarter-finals under Stamm three years ago.