News
20/07/2009Italy defeated by USA. First victory for Montenegro Croatia and Spain
At the starting match of the 13th FINA World Championships, Italy is stopped by the United States: 9-8 is the final result. American Beaubien starts off the goals, but the “azzurri” equalized after a minute with Calcaterra who scores his first day: in the whole match he will realize a hat-trick. Americans outdistance the Alessandro Campagna’s boys with Azevedo and Smith, while Felugo gain upon them: the first period closes on 3-2. The “Stars and Stripes” advantage holds up until the earliest seconds of the last period, when Italians draw (6-6) with a Mangiante’s nice goal. It is an exciting end of the match: the teams don’t save any energy until the latest seconds, and the Americans get the better of their rivals. Italy stops at sea level in Group D, together with Macedonia which was defeated by Romania in the preceding match.
About the other two matches in the afternoon session, Australian won over Kazakhstan 14-7, while Spain defeated Serbia 11-9 in Group C. Maitland scores the first goal for Australia, Kazakh Andreyev draws the result. Cleland’s and Cotteril’s signatures mark the Australian advantage: Kazakhstan, a little bit distract and imprecise, is always following the rivals.
The Serbia-Spain match was exciting, hard fought and full of sensational developments. After the Spanish rule for almost a half of match, Serbians find the draw; then Balkans take advantage at 1’43 of the third period with Gocic who scores 5-4 while Perrone take the result draw again a few seconds before the end of the third period: it’s 6-6. In the last period the match is decided by a thrust and counter-thrust: in the end Spain closes the match on 11-9.