The Montenegrin water polo players will participate in the final tournament of the European Cup in Rijeka this weekend, and head coach Vladimir Gojković has published a list of 15 players he will count on for the newly formed competition under the auspices of LEN, reports Vijesti on April 3, 2018.
The "Sharks" will be in the group with Serbia, Croatia and France, while the second group boasts Hungary, Italy, Greece and Spain.
The competition is such that the best teams from two groups will advance to the finals, while the second-placed teams will fight for the bronze.
Compared to the qualifying tournament in Palermo in February, Gojkovic made some changes to the team. Precisely, there will be no Aleksa Ukropina due to a shoulder injury, Stefan Vidović and Nikola Murišić, while we'll see the return of Bogdan Đurđić, Vlado Popadić and Vladan Spaić.
"We have already talked about this competition, and it is challenging - four games will be played in four days, and for the fifth day we go to Romania to play against them in the World League on the sixth day. The goal is that everyone will be healthy after this tournament because they will return to club obligations," Gojković said.
The first match for Montenegro will be played against Serbia (Thursday at 20:30), followed by games with Croatia (Friday at 17:30) and France (Saturday 17:30).
"We will have checks against the two strongest teams at the moment - Serbia and Croatia. We play Serbia on the first day, and they are coming with a much stronger lineup than in Podgorica, and through these matches, we can only raise the level of our game. When we look at the final lineups, we have the least experience of everyone in the European Cup, because we are a team that is just building. I believe that we will be better from match to match," Gojković said.
Gojković's list of players for Rijeka are: Dejan Lazović, Draško Brguljan, Bojan Banićević, Marko Petković, Aleksandar Radović, Đuro Radović, Dragan Drašković, Vlado Popadić, Aleksandar Ivović, Saša Mišić, Vladan Spaić, Uroš Čučković, Miloš Šćepanović, Filip Klikovac and Bogdan Djurdjić.
This article was translated from an article by A.H. on Vijesti.me Gojković has announced a list of 15 players for the European Cup
