Miloš Saković: World silver must not let juniors sleep

The national team composed of water polo players born in 2006 and later continued the successful tradition of the Serbian junior and junior junior teams.

Boys born in 2006 and younger recently won silver at the World Championship for 18-year-olds in Buenos Aires. After five victories against strong rivals in Division 1 matches and the playoffs, Hungary stopped them on their way to gold in the final.

Although the players and the coaching staff, headed by the federal coach Miloš Saković, are not completely satisfied with what was achieved, because they wanted the gold, the result was a great success, and the continuity of winning awards was maintained.

During the preparations, Serbia did not play in official tournaments, it did not have many opportunities before the tournament to test its strength against the rivals who were waiting for them at the world championship, but before leaving for Argentina, Saković emphasized that he believes that the team can achieve success.

At the beginning of the interview for the UVTS website, coach Saković analyzed the course of the preparations and answered the question on what he built his optimism on despite the absence of test matches:

During the club season, we did not have many joint training sessions, because the candidates for the national team played in five competitions - the Super League, the First A League, the First B League of Serbia, the Regional League and the European Cup. The calendar was such that it was difficult to find time for preparations. Among other things, we had to cancel the planned preparations in Istanbul, because there was a change in the calendar of the Turkish championship, and we could not postpone our playoff matches.

The championship in Buenos Aires came unusually early, so even after the end of the season we didn't have much time for preparations, while the players also had obligations at the end of the school year. But other national teams were in the same situation, no one organized preparatory tournaments for 18-year-olds.

Without optimism there are no good results

Nevertheless, the coaching staff of Serbia had some image of the rival's quality

In February we sparred with Spain and Montenegro, and during other preparations, in June in Novi Sad, with Hungary and Croatia. It is normal that no one revealed all their strengths and tactical ideas in sparring matches, but those control matches helped me and my coaching staff to see where we are compared to our rivals.

I built my optimism on the fact that I believed in the coaching staff and the guys in the team. From the previous coach Miloš Korolija, who led this generation for the previous two summers, got a lot of information about the opponents and about our players. Without a dose of optimism, a result cannot be achieved," the selector underlines.

The final placing in the championship was almost identical to that in Group B of Division 1. Medals were won by the teams that played in the same group in the first stage – Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro. Only Italy reached the semi-finals from Group A.

Before the start of the tournament, I would not line up the teams like that. The surprise for me and the coaching staff was Italy's first place in Group A, in which Spain was fourth. We saw Spain and Hungary as our biggest rivals. For Hungary, it turned out that we were right, and probably the Spaniards, who ended up fifth, would have scored more if they hadn't had two bad lucks. Their best player Gomila was absent. In addition, they were delayed in their journey, so they arrived in Buenos Aires less than 24 hours before the first round, which partly influenced them to open the tournament with a defeat against Greece.

In the end, it turned out that our group was of better quality, and apart from the order of the first three teams, this is also confirmed by the fact that the USA team, ranked fourth in our group, beat Croatia in the match for seventh place, which entered the playoffs from second place. positions in Group A.

Almost every team had swings in the tournament. One of the favorites, Spain had a seven-goal advantage against Croatia in the first half, but lost to five. Greece squandered a four-goal lead against Hungary in the quarter-finals. Serbia also had a similar match, but without consequences. A fantastic start of 8:0 opened the way for her to win over Montenegro in the semi-finals. However, at the beginning of the last part, Montenegro came close to 6:9. However, Serbia responded with two goals for 11:6 and calmly brought the match to an end (12:9).

"If someone had offered us a 9:6 lead at the end of the duel with Montenegro before the start of the match, we would have accepted it for sure. We started furiously, and I don't like those kinds of games. I always tell the players that a lead of 5:0, 6:0 at the beginning of a match against a quality rival is the worst for the team. Let's think the game is over. After the high leadership, we got into the rhythm of Montenegro, but the victory was out of the question, because we pulled away in time.

In many games, goals were scored quickly and seemingly easily.

The World Championship for 18-year-olds, as well as for water polo players two years younger, is played on a shorter field, which also affected the number of goals scored. It is faster to attack, therefore there are more goals, which partly influenced the oscillations of all teams. We tried to make the oscillation as small as possible".

Custom competition format, organization below expectations

Since last year, all major competitions for younger categories, with the exception of the WC for 16-year-olds, have been played in a two-division format. There are usually no easy games for teams from the first division. In Buenos Aires, Serbia met practically only with candidates for medals - Hungary, Montenegro (twice each), Spain. The only easier match was the duel with USA.

I think this format is good for teams like Serbia. If we come to the competition with the desire to be first, it is better to compete against serious rivals and thus prepare for the most important matches than to play matches that we win by twenty goals.

Saković praises the format of the competition, but not the organization of the championship.

“In my opinion, a mistake was made that the organization was assigned to Argentina. They did not prove to be great hosts. Now it's winter with them, and the teams trained in a swimming pool where there is no heating. The water temperature was fine, but it was cold outside. The players did not have adequate conditions to warm up before entering the water, they froze when they left it. Many water polo players fell ill during the championship. Due to such conditions for training, we also had problems with the health bulletin. There were other omissions. The Argentinians should have been given a smaller competition first, in order to gain experience for organizing the World Cup.

Speaking about what the vice-champions of the world should focus on after their success in Argentina, Saković emphasized:

This generation needs to work on the transition from senior to junior water polo. The biggest trap at this age is that when a player wins a medal at the World Championship, he can think that he is the best in the world, and only when he enters senior water polo does he see that it is not so. In the past decades, Serbian water polo has had many junior champions of Europe and the world, who they never achieved even as senior players in clubs, let alone in the national team. It's a long way from the junior team to the senior national team, and a little shorter from the junior representative to a successful senior player in the club.

Some of the junior representatives have become first team players in their clubs, some are on their way to becoming one.  It is important to continue their development paths through the clubs.

Saković does not forget to mention everyone who, apart from the players, participated in the success:

During the preparations and the competition itself, the professional staff functioned as one. Without the excellent cooperation in the professional staff, we would not have reached this result. I thank the coaches Nikola Rađen, Miloš Popović, goalkeeper coach Milutin Belopavlović, doctor Dr. Miodrag Nastić and I thank the team leader at the championship, Goran Čanković