LEN Euro Cup Water Polo, final, 1st leg – Summary

 

Ferencvaros en route to victory

Ferencvaros players put their hands on the Euro Cup trophy right in the first match of the final, thrashing Oradea 6-12 in the away match. The Hungarian team can win a European title after 19 years.

The match was held in a wonderful atmosphere as Oradea is close to the Hungarian border, so a lot of fans accompanied Ferencvaros to see the team contesting its first European final after 1998. The locals also flooded the stands as this was the Romanian side’s first ever final at the European stage in its history. After ousting two strong Italian clubs in the previous two rounds, Oradea looked a legitimate candidate but the Hungarians were still favoured thanks to their quality line-up, featuring Hungarian and Serbian Olympic champions.

Though Oradea also had a Rio gold medallist Serb, in their goal, Gojko Pijetlovic couldn’t prevent Ferencvaros from making a flying start. The Magyars took a 0-3 lead in the first eight minutes and that turned out to be determining the rest of the match. They maintained the gap in the second (2-5) and with two fine shots from the distance they went 2-7 up early in the third. Oradea woke up a bit late and climbed back to 5-8 and 6-9 but ran out of gas for the finish. On the other end Ferencvaros hit three more to earn a 6-12 win which seems to be decisive. Serbian Stefan Mitrovic was the hero of the evening with three goals for the visitors.

After winning the then-existing Cupwinners Cup in 1998 (for the fourth time), the Hungarian side is about to clinch another European trophy in two-week time.

Euro Cup, 1st leg

CSM DiGi Oradea (ROU) v Ferencvaros (HUN) 6-12

Second leg: 5 April

Source: LEN