After two consecutive victories in the first qualification tournament, the joint team of Ilia State University and the Tbilisi Municipality “Ligamus Tbilisi” achieved its minimum goal by reaching the second round. Victory of the beginners versus two favorite teams of the tournament “Posilipo” (Italy) and “Honved” (Hungary) was considered unrealistic from the very beginning, though Georgian team still hoped to defeat “Olympic Nice” (France) and use an opportunity to become the third in the sub-group.
The french team, which is an eight time winner of national championships, has already received four prizes and regularly participates in the competitions of Euroleague and LEN Trophy, they are very experienced in international tournaments. At the beginning of the play hosts made a rough mistake and Remi Sodadi made a very good use of the situation scoring a point. Soon Beqa Khenkhadze managed to restore the balance and “Ligamus Tbilisi” even managed to gain advantage. On the sixth minute of the game, guests scored and tied.
During the second and third rounds Georgian sportsmen showed obvious advantage gaining a lead of 6:3. Fans were hoping for a third victory, but the French accelerated the speed of the game and forced the hosts to make more mistakes resulting in victory with 9:8. After the competition head of “Olympic Nice” Samuel Nardone said: “Were your boys a little bit more experienced, they would undoubtedly have won the game”.
Other plays of the fourth round ended with the following results:
”Enka” (Istanbul) -”Asa” (Tel Aviv) 10:11, (2:2, 4:3, 4:2, 0:4).
“Honved” (Budapest) – “Posilipo” (Naples) 8:9 (3:3, 2:2, 2:1, 1:3).
On October 10, 2010, the swimming complex “Olympic” hosted the last games for qualification into a tournament for group “A”. The “Ligamus Tbilisi” played versus “Posilipo” from Italy. The italian team was founded in 1925 and had once Benito Mussolini as a honorary president. The team is an eleven times national champion, three times Euroleague, two times LEN Trophy and once Super Cup winner.
There were not many who believed that our boys would be able to confront pupils of the 1992 Olympic Champion Carlo Silipo. The home team was really strong in the first period and won 2:1. But starting from the second period the Italian team managed to grab advantage and celebrated the fifth victory finally scoring 15:9. “Honved” (Hungary) which lost to “Posilipo” in the previous period won a game with “Enka” (Turkey) and scored 19:0. “Olympic Nice” (France) defeated “Asa” (Istael) with 11:5.
Places were distributed the following way:
”Posilipo” (Italy) 5 5 0 0 70:30 15
”Honved” (Hungary) 5 4 0 1 74:23 12
”Olympic Nice” (France) 5 3 0 2 44:42 9
”Ligamus Tbilisi” (Georgia) 5 2 0 3 63:49 6
”Asa” (Israel) 5 1 0 4 31:73 3
”Enka” (Turkey) 5 0 0 5 21:86 0
Zviad Davitiani, chief coach of “Ligamus Tbilisi” said: “I am not dissatisfied with the results. We have managed to achieve our minimum goal: we reached the second round with three more games to go. That will benefit the team a lot in getting better qualification. “Ligamus Tbilisi” forms the core of the national team. The national team of Georgia has to participate in a selection play versus Great Britain for the championship of Europe on October 30, 2010. We will try to eradicate the problems [we had in this tournament]. Thanks a lot to the Water Sports Federation of Georgia, Ilia State University and Tbilisi Municipality, who supported us at every stage of preparing for an important tournament”.
Dejan Perisic (Serbia), delegate of the qualification tournament said: “We all are so delighted by an organization and hosting of the competition! We felt like at home all the time. I have a feeling as if I have been here in Tbilisi several times already. “Ligamus Tbilisi” which is a debutant team has managed to reach the second round, which is quite a success. The team consists of young water polo players and it will enjoy a successful future”.
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