Greece’s golden water polo generation

AGONAsport takes an in-depth look at the members of the Greek national team who recently won gold at the 2019 Men’s Junior (U20) Water Polo World Championships in Kuwait.

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With seven wins in nine days, beating Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Uzbekistan, the United States, Croatia, and Serbia, Greece successfully defended their Junior (U20) Water Polo World Championship title from 2017. The boys from this generation have now played a role in four titles within the past two years, as the Greek teams won gold at the 2017 Men’s U20 World Championships, the 2018 Men’s U18 World Championships, the 2018 Men’s U19 European Championships, and the 2019 Men’s U20 World Championships. None of the 13 players on this year’s roster were on all four of those teams, but each of those four title-winning teams had players from this year’s squad.

The players on this year’s U20 roster included: Ioannis Alafragis, Aristeidis Chalyvopoulos, Stelios Dalmaras, Michail Diplaros, Konstantinos Gkiouvetsis, Michail Goniotakis, Konstantinos Kakaris, Efstathios Kalogeropoulos, Nikolaos Mitrakis, Dimitrios Nikolaidis, Efstathios Papageorgiou, Alexandros Papanastasiou, and Charalambos Robopoulos. Head coach Theodoros Lorantos was in charge of the U20 teams in 2017 and 2019, and the U19 team in 2018, though this year he was suspended from the quarter-finals on. Assistant coach Nikolaos Karamanis led the team after Lorantos’ suspension.

Gkiouvetsis, Nikolaidis, and Papanastasiou are the only three players who were on both the 2017 and 2019 teams that won the World U20 Championships. These three players, along with Mitrakis, were named to the all-tournament team this year. Mitrakis was also named the best goalkeeper of the tournament, while Alafragis was the MVP of the final against Serbia. The youngest player on the team is Chalyvopoulos at just 17. He, along with Goniotakis and Kalogeropoulos, will return in 2021 to help Greece try and win their third consecutive title at this event.

Eleven of the 13 players on this Greek squad play domestically in Greece, either for Apollon Smyrni, Palaio Faliro, Olympiacos, or Vouliagmeni. Nikolaidis and Papanastasiou are the only two who currently play abroad. Nikolaidis plays in Italy for Brescia, while Papanastasiou plays in Croatia for Jug Dubrovnik.

Nikolaidis, who was part of the Olympiacos team that won the 2017-18 LEN Champions League, has scored 14 goals in seven European games this season for his Italian club. Papanastasiou has scored 11 goals for his Croatian club in the Champions League this season. The two Vouliagmeni players on this Greek U20 team (Gkiouvetsis and Kalogeropoulos) have scored many goals in Europe this season, with the former having 13 and the latter having seven. Finally, Kakaris, who plays for Olympiacos, has scored three goals in this year’s Champions League so far. With so many talented young players doing well for both club and country despite growing up during the height of Greece’s economic crisis, the sky is the limit for the future of Greek men’s water polo.

by Andrew Stamas

Image Source: fina.org

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