Sin. Italy lost the world final on penalties (13-15) against a Croatia with seven lives, capable of recovering several times and closing the match from five meters after practically losing it. With one hundred seconds left, the Azzurri had grabbed the lead (11-10) which seemed decisive. The Croatians' equalizer came 5 seconds before the siren, giving penalties to a final with an always uncertain epilogue. The Doha adventure in which the Azzurri regained their share in the middle of a season that is aiming straight for the Paris Games ends in the tears of the Settebello. Five years after the world championship success in Gwangju, the missed prologue of the Tokyo Games which were then postponed for a year, comes the silver medal for the Azzurri of Sandro Campagna, the coach who, right in the rubble of the Olympic trip to Japan, was able to rebuild a team by working on head and heart before arms and legs.
TOWARDS THE OLYMPICS
Water Polo World Championships: tears and pride, the Settebello relaunches
by our correspondent GIULIA ZONCA
In the eighth final of a world championship, the 2019 veterans Del Lungo, Di Fulvio, Echenique, Di Somma, Velotto, Nicosia, Renzuto together with all the others bring another medal in the glorious and unattainable history of Italian water polo, capable to put the fourth silver on the showcase which, alongside a bronze, crowns four world championship titles. A podium that arrives less than six months before the Paris Games, in a year that has the Olympic tournament as its main objective. At the moment the Settebello has the right revs, having recorded its engine progressing, first at the European Championships and then at the World Championships, in the hunt for qualification for the Games. Doha is currently a stage and not a point of arrival. The race continues.
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