The first day of men's Olympic water polo play is over and the big surprise is that Hungary was easily defeated by Serbia 14-10, and now the three-time reigning Olympic gold medal champion could be in danger of not winning their fourth straight gold medal.
Andrija Prlainovic led the Serbia offense with five goals in a fast pace attack against Hungary, and goalkeeper Slobodan Sporo was impressive in goal and stopping the Hungarian attack. Filip Filipovic, the reigning 2011 world player of the year, scored a pair of goals and talked about the win over Hungary:
"It was not easy. They are triple Olympic medalists, so we maybe expected a little bit more aggression from their side and expected maybe a tougher game in defense and offense.''
As for Hungary they were downplaying their performance by saying they played a bad game:
"We lost against a very good team," said Hungary's Tamas Kasas. "We played bad, they played really good, and our defense was unfortunately not present, not good at all. But the tournament is very long, so we will have time."
Kasas, who is one of four triple gold medalists on Hungary's team, brushed aside talk of disappointment with the unbeaten streak coming to a halt.
"I don't care about records," he said. "We just want to win the next game and not think about history and records, because if you think about this you can't concentrate on the next match."
So, Hungary is not giving Serbia too much credit for the win, but Kasas is right that the tournament is long and all they need to do is get into the top four and advance to the knockout stages.
Hungary goalkeeper Zoltan Szcesi said that his team was not focused for this game, particularly when they were on defense.
Hungary next match is against Montenegro, and with both teams at 0-1 it is almost a must win situation to avoid being in last place in Group B.