The Spanish win, Hungarian ladies come in third at the European Water Polo Championships

Nobody has fonder memories on Budapest than the members of the Spanish women water polo team. They won their first-ever European title in the Hungarian capital 2014 and now they clinched their second here, between the two they were silver medallist at the 2017 World Championships. In the final they staged a great second half and a 5-0 rush to turn the game against Russia and bag the gold medal. The bronze went to Hungary, the host team came from 5-8 down and also had a 5-0 run while not conceded a single goal in the last 14 minutes of the match.

Women’s final: Spain v Russia 13-12.

Bronze medal: Hungary v Netherlands 10-8.

For places 5-6th: Greece v Italy 5-7. For places 7-8th: France v Slovakia 17-8

Spain sat back to the European throne after six years and this was is no way surprising. The team played back-to-back World Championships finals in 2017 and 2019, and even though they suffered a shocking semi-final defeat against the Greeks two years ago in their home, Barcelona, this time they came up with a balanced performance and finished atop once more in Budapest.

With the Olympic berths already secured by both sides, the final was tense but not really nervous – as a consequence, the first half already offered a scoring festival. The action-packed opening period saw seven goals, the Russians took a 3-4 lead but the Spaniards geared up for the second and went in front while the teams netted one goal after the other. Nine more came in these eight minutes so by halftime the teams produced the amount which is usual during an entire match (8-8).

The real twists arrived in the third as Ekaterina Prokofyeva netted a 6 on 5 while the Spanish offence had been frozen for a while. Maria Bersneva added one more five minutes later for 8-10 and the next Spanish 6 on 5 was almost denied but with some luck the ball was recollected by Maica Garcia who broke the Spanish silence, lasting for 8:10 minutes. And in just 35 seconds Anna Espar scored an action goal – thus the last period also started from equal (10-10).

One more lucky goal signed that Spain was really on the rise, this time the other Espar sister Clara could put away the rebound in a man-up. Russia had an extra to equalise but it was missed and soon Garcia delivered her trademark action goal from the centre with 4:14 remaining. Olga Gorbunova, who was just one goal shy of tying Rita Keszthelyi’s feat of 28 goals as the top scorer, was blocked in the following 6 on 5 – on the contrary, Paula Leiton’s powered one more in for Spain from the 2m line in a man-up for 13-10. It was a 5-0 rush from Spain and that decided the title. The Russian ‘freeze’ took 9:30 minutes, even though they pulled two back in the remaining time but the second came 22 seconds before the end, Spain kept the ball and launched great celebrations at the end.