2006 Men's European Water Polo Championship

The 2006 Men's European Water Polo Championship' was the 27th exhibition of the event organised by the Europe's governing body in aquatics, the Ligue Européenne de Natation. The event took place in the Tašmajdan Sports Centre in Belgrade, Serbia, from 1 to 10 September 2006.

There were three qualification tournaments ahead of the event, held from 7 to 9 April 2006 in Kranj, Slovenia (with France, Slovenia, Slovakia and Malta competing), in Eindhoven, Netherlands (Greece, Netherlands, Poland and Moldova), and in Imperia, Italy (Belarus, Italy, Romania and Turkey).

Qualification

Teams

GROUP A

GROUP B

Preliminary round

Group A

	Team	Points	G	W	D	L	GF	GA	Diff
1.	Serbia	15	5	5	0	0	78	34	+44
2.	Spain	9	5	3	0	2	59	54	+5
3.	Romania	7	5	2	1	2	41	48	−7
4.	Russia	6	5	2	0	3	49	53	−4
5.	Netherlands	5	5	1	2	2	46	58	−12
6.	Slovakia	1	5	0	1	4	36	62	−26

September 1, 2006


10:00	Romania	8 – 11	Spain	(2–4, 2–4, 2–1, 2–2)
13:00	Netherlands	11–11	Slovakia	(4–3, 2–3, 3–3, 2–2)
20:15	Serbia	13 – 6	Russia	(5–1, 3–1, 3–2, 2–2)

September 2, 2006


11:30	Spain	13 – 8	Slovakia	(3–3, 3–2, 4–0, 3–3)
13:00	Romania	13 – 10	Russia	(2–3, 4–1, 4–3, 3–3)
20:15	Serbia	17 – 10	Netherlands	(6–4, 3–1, 4–3, 4–2)

September 3, 2006


11:30	Netherlands	8–8	Romania	(4–2, 2–4, 1–1, 1–1)
13:00	Russia	10 – 13	Spain	(1–5, 5–1, 3–5, 1–2)
20:15	Serbia	19 – 2	Slovakia	(4–1, 5–0, 6–1, 4–0)

September 4, 2006


10:00	Russia	11 – 5	Netherlands	(3–0, 2–2, 4–0, 2–3)
11:30	Romania	7 – 6	Slovakia	(1–2, 4–2, 1–1, 1–1)
20:15	Serbia	16 – 11	Spain	(3–1, 5–3, 3–3, 5–4)

September 5, 2006


11:30	Slovakia	9 – 12	Russia	(2–2, 2–4, 1–3, 4–3)
13:00	Netherlands	12 – 11	Spain	(4–2, 3–4, 4–2, 1–3)
20:15	Serbia	13 – 5	Romania	(4–2, 2–1, 4–1, 3–1)

Group B

	Team	Points	G	W	D	L	GF	GA	Diff
1.	Hungary	15	5	5	0	0	82	41	+41
2.	Italy	9	5	3	0	2	57	50	+7
3.	Greece	7	5	2	1	2	59	48	+11
4.	Germany	7	5	2	1	2	52	54	−2
5.	Croatia	5	5	1	2	2	57	52	+5
6.	Slovenia	0	5	0	0	5	33	95	−62

September 1, 2006


11:30	Hungary	23 – 6	Slovenia	(5–1, 8–0, 4–2, 6–3)
17:15	Greece	11 – 8	Germany	(1–1, 4–1, 3–4, 3–2)
18:45	Croatia	8 – 9	Italy	(2–2, 0–2, 4–3, 2–2)

September 2, 2006


10:00	Slovenia	6 – 19	Greece	(2–5, 1–4, 2–3, 1–7)
17:15	Italy	8 – 11	Germany	(1–4, 2–2, 1–2, 4–3)
18:45	Croatia	11 – 16	Hungary	(3–4, 4–3, 1–5, 3–4)

September 3, 2006


10:00	Germany	14 – 6	Slovenia	(2–2, 5–0, 2–3, 5–1)
17:15	Greece	10–10	Croatia	(2–2, 1–1, 4–4, 3–3)
18:45	Hungary	13 – 6	Italy	(3–2, 6–2, 2–1, 2–1)

September 4, 2006


13:00	Italy	20 – 7	Slovenia	(7–1, 3–1, 4–2, 6–3)
17:15	Hungary	10 – 8	Greece	(3–2, 3–2, 1–2, 3–2)
18:45	Croatia	9–9	Germany	(3–2, 3–1, 2–2, 1–4)

September 5, 2006


10:00	Slovenia	8 – 19	Croatia	(2–7, 3–5, 2–4, 1–3)
17:15	Germany	10 – 20	Hungary	(1–7, 4–4, 5–3, 0–6)
18:45	Greece	11 – 14	Italy	(2–2, 3–3, 2–4, 4–5)

Final round

Places 7/12

September 7, 2006


10:00	Netherlands	12 – 8	Slovenia	(3–1, 0–2, 1–5, 4–4)
11:30	Slovakia	6 – 12	Croatia	(3–4, 0–1, 3–5, 0–2)

September 8, 2006


11:30	Croatia	10 – 7	Russia	(2–1, 4–1, 1–2, 3–3)
13:00	Netherlands	6 – 12	Germany	(3–3, 1–3, 1–2, 1–4)

Places 11 / 12

September 8, 2006


10:00	Slovenia	9 – 10	Slovakia	(2–4, 1–3, 5–2, 1–1)

Places 9 / 10

September 9, 2006


10:00	Russia	15 – 10	Netherlands	(5–3, 3–3, 5–0, 2–4)

Places 7 / 8

September 9, 2006


11:30	Croatia	11 – 7	Germany	(2–1, 4–3, 2–1, 3–2)

Quarterfinals

September 7, 2006


18:45	Spain	12 – 10	Greece	(3–2, 3–3, 2–3, 4–2)
20:15	Romania	10 – 9	Italy	(4–4, 2–5, 1–0, 3–0)

Semifinals

September 8, 2006


18:45	Romania	6 – 13	Serbia	(0–4, 1–2, 2–3, 3–4)
20:15	Spain	10 – 16	Hungary	(3–5, 2–3, 1–4, 4–4)

Finals

Places 5 / 6

September 9, 2006


13:00	Greece	10 – 11	Italy	(1–2, 1–0, 3–3, 3–3, 1–2, 1–1)

Bronze medal

September 10, 2006


18:45	Romania	4 – 10	Spain	(1–2, 2–2, 0–3, 1–3)

Gold medal

September 10, 2006


21:00	Serbia	9 – 8	Hungary	(2–4, 4–1, 2–3, 1–0)

Final ranking

RANK	TEAM
	Serbia
	Hungary
	Spain
4.	Romania
5.	Italy
6.	Greece
7.	Croatia
8.	Germany
9.	Russia
10.	Netherlands
11.	Slovakia
12.	Slovenia

2006 Men's European champion
Serbia Fourth title

Team roster

Denis Šefik, Petar Trbojević, Živko Gocić, Vanja Udovičić, Dejan Savić, Danilo Ikodinović, Slobodan Nikić, Filip Filipović, Aleksandar Ćirić, Aleksandar Šapić, Vladimir Vujasinović, Branko Peković, Slobodan Soro, Duško Pijetlović, and Andrija Prlainović
Head coach: Dejan Udovičić

Individual awards

Most Valuable Player
- Tamás Kásás (HUN)

Best Goalkeeper
- Denis Šefik (SRB)

Topscorer
- Aleksandar Šapić (SRB)— 33 goals

Medalists

Gold	Silver	Bronze
SERBIA 1. Denis Šefik GK 2. Petar Trbojević 3. Živko Gocić 4. Vanja Udovičić 5. Dejan Savić 6. Danilo Ikodinović 7. Slobodan Nikić 8. Filip Filipović 9. Aleksandar Ćirić 10. Aleksandar Šapić 11. Vladimir Vujasinović 12. Branko Peković 13. Slobodan Soro GK 14. Duško Pijetlović 15. Andrija Prlainović Head coach Dejan Udovičić	HUNGARY 1. Zoltán Szécsi 2. Dániel Varga 3. Norbert Madaras 4. Ádám Steinmetz 5. Tamás Kásás 6. Márton Szívós 7. Gergely Kiss 8. Norbert Hosnyánszky 9. Rajmund Fodor 10. Dénes Varga 11. Gábor Kis 12. Tamás Molnár 13. Péter Biros 14. Miklós Gór-Nagy 15. Gábor Jászberényi Head coach Dénes Kemény	SPAIN 1. Inaki Aguilar 2. Mario García 3. David Martín 4. Ricardo Perrone 5. Guillermo Molina 6. Sergio Mora 7. Oscar Rey 8. José Rodríguez 9. Xavier Vallès 10. Felipe Perrone 11. Iván Pérez 12. Xavier García 13. Ángel Andreo 14. Marc Minguell 15. Blai Mallarach Head coach Rafael Aguilar

Top scorers

Pl.	Player	Goals
1.	Aleksandar Šapić (SRB)	33
2.	Miho Bošković (CRO)	21
3.	Tamás Kásás (HUN)	20
4.	Guillermo Molina (ESP)	18
	Georgios Ntoskas (GRE)	18

References

LEN website