Champions fell in the quarters on Day 11 of the European Water Polo Championships

The Olympic champion and title-holder Serbian team’s quest for a record-tying fifth straight gold was halted by 2018 runner-up Spain as they avenged their defeat two years ago by beating the Serbs in a penalty shootout. Earlier Montenegro staged a great performance to oust world champion Italy and keep its Olympic qualification campaign alive. They will face host Hungary in the semis, which overcame minor struggles and with a fine second half downed the Russians. Croatia came up with a brilliant first two quarters against Greece and they just cruised in the second half to set-up a re-match with Spain after their memorable battle in the semis at the Worlds last summer.

Men’s quarter-finals: Italy v Montenegro 8-10, Serbia v Spain 6-6 (penalties: 3-4), Hungary v Russia 14-10, Croatia v Greece 14-11

For places 9-12^th: Turkey v Georgia 6-12, Germany v Romania 15-10. For places 13-14^th: Slovakia v France 6-9. For places 15-16^th: Malta v Netherlands 9-19

Fixtures for Friday:

Semi-finals: Montenegro v Hungary, Spain v Croatia. For places 5-8^th: Italy v Russia, Serbia v Greece. For places 9-10^th: Georgia v Germany. For places 11-12^th: Turkey v Romania.

The quarters kicked off in the most stunning way possible as Montenegro ousted the world champion Italian team. In the first period the Montenegrins took the lead thrice but Italy could equalise every time and then went ahead three times in the second but the Montenegrins also had the answers. It was a thrilling first half, capped with a great blast from Dragan Draskovic who gave back the lead to his team for halftime (6-7).

Things started changing in the third, though the Italians managed go even but they began to miss their man-ups in succession while their rivals netted two 6 on 5s to build a 7-9 lead before the last break. The trends didn’t change in the fourth, the world champions were unable to put away any of their 6 on 5 (they closed the match with 1 for 15) – while Aleksandar Ivovic buried a penalty for 7-10. Though Nicolo Figari pulled one back from action with 3:36 to go, they couldn’t add any more (after 6-5 there was a 15-minute long period when Montenegro had a 1-5 rush). This means Italy will miss the quarters for the second time in the last six editions – the previous loss also occurred in a January edition, in 2016, guess to whom: Montenegro (7-10).

The series of shocks didn’t end here, in the next game the title-holder and Olympic champion Serbs were also gone. In recent years Spain found the tools to match them, in the final of the previous Europeans they played a draw and lost only in the shootout. Last summer they beat them in the World Championships quarters, though that was a young Serb side – but this time they managed to oust the ‘mighty boys’.

The game followed almost the same pattern as the final in Barcelona: though the Serbs took a 3-1 lead, Spain went ahead with four connecting goals to 3-5 (three came in a span of 101 seconds). The champions came back here too as in 2018: after the Spaniards missed a crucial man-up to go 7-4 up, they netted one for 6-5 before the third. Then Dusan Mandic buried a 6 on 5, his third in the game, to break even with 5:51 remaining. And the defences worked well, especially Dani Lopez, who had 11 saves, so the decision was left to the shootout once more.