Women's World Cup: Let's take on the Australians

And so a person arrives in Chengdu, known for its panda bears and located 1800 kilometers away from Shanghai – and steps into the Duna Arena. Indeed, in preparation for the 2021 Universiade, our Chinese friends decided not to build a new pool from scratch and instead explored the world. They spoke to many and unsurprisingly, heard the best reviews about our complex in Budapest. So, they sat down with the appropriate authorities – and with all bells and whistles, they bought the arena plans and built it here, more or less identical.

The exterior may be different – fitting with the other sports facilities in the sport park – but inside, the competitive pool and seating arrangements, concrete are the same, and the warm-up pool is in the same place; though they lack the numerous windows, mainly due to the climate as it is already 33 degrees Celsius during the day.

Either way, if it weren't for the six-hour time difference, our women's team would feel right at home, as they practiced at the Arena in preparation for the World Cup starting on Friday, instead of the familiar Margaret Island: it was possible to model the local conditions at home as well.

For some members of the team, this is not entirely new: the younger squad members spent a week in Chengdu at last year's U18 World Championships and eventually left with a shining bronze medal.

Whether they would sign up for that now – especially since the men also managed to get on the podium last week in Podgorica – can be guessed, as Vanda Vályi put it after the final Thursday training session, "it would be hard to reach the medal through a tougher path: we start with the Olympic silver medalist, and if we manage to win against them, we will most likely face the Olympic champions from Spain, and then probably the Olympic bronze medalists from the Netherlands."

The fifth place in Division I meant that our opponent in the quarterfinals will be the fourth place team there – namely the Australians, who surprisingly finished second in Paris after defeating the Americans who had won the previous three Olympics in the semi-finals. And we don't have very good memories either, because although we have consistently defeated them in the cycle world championships, at the Olympic Games, we could only manage a draw in the deciding group match against them, and eventually lost in penalties (a victory in regular time would have avoided the Americans in the quarterfinals).

Head coach Sándor Cseh does not deny that the Hungarian team is not the favorite in Friday's quarterfinal. "A very good generation has come together for the Australians, they are very united, and I think based on what we saw in Paris, they are ahead of us. However, we are the Hungarian national team, and we approach this match with the desire to win – and I would like to see not only this desire but also that our game will be proactive, meaning that we will show as much as possible of what we have practiced and what our players are good at."

The six-hour time difference is something the coach does not really want to discuss. "Obviously, we have traveled a lot, we arrived at night, but I don't want this or the extra six hours to influence us, and if we delve too much into it, it means that we are already engaging with it and diverting our attention from what is truly important: and that is the World Cup quarterfinal."

Vanda Vályi was also clear in her statement: "Wednesday went by as we recovered, but today we all put behind us the issues related to the time difference – we trained to be ready for the World Cup kick-off. And I am convinced that we are truly ready. We know that a very difficult match awaits us because the Australians are good, big, and strong; it will be a huge physical battle, but I believe we also have strengths that we will be able to exploit."

Nevertheless, on the other side of the draw, there were serious two-goalkeeper practices with the Italians on Thursday morning and the Dutch in the evening, and based on what was seen, it can be said that the girls have picked up the pace – bring on the start of Friday.

The stakes are similar to those of the men's competition a week ago: besides the medals and the $70,000 main prize, achieving a prominent seeding at the World Championship draw is also important (which would be guaranteed with a spot in the final four).

Interestingly, the draw for the World Championship will not be held in Chengdu as originally planned, but on May 7 at the Budapest office of the world federation.

Women's World Cup Final, Chengdu

Quarterfinals

13.30 Netherlands vs. Japan

15.15 Greece vs. Italy

18.30 Spain vs. China

20.15 Australia vs. Hungary (2:15 PM Hungarian time)