Serbia Crushes Slovenia 32-1, Sets Up Montenegro Derby

Serbia won the opening faceoff and needed just 23 seconds to find the back of the net. Viktor Urosevic scored on the very first attack, and that single play set the tone for the next half hour in the Taranto pool. By the end of the first quarter, Slovenia had not managed a single attempt on Serbia’s goal without committing a foul.

Head coach Vladimir Vujasinovic had asked his team for seriousness from the first minute to the last, no matter how obvious the gap in quality was, and the players delivered. Serbia beat Slovenia 32-1 in the opening round of Group A at the Mediterranean Games, with quarter scores of 7-0, 7-0, 9-1 and 9-0.

How the match unfolded

After Urosevic’s goal in the 23rd second, Djordje Vucinic, Nikola Lukic, Bogdan Gavrilovic, Marko Dimitrijevic and Vuk Milojevic quickly followed onto the scoresheet, and Serbia led 7-0 after eight minutes. Vucinic scored twice in that opening period.

The second quarter looked much like the first. Vasilije Martinovic and Vucinic traded goals in quick succession, and then Dimitrijevic scored three straight to push the lead further. Urosevic and Dusan Trtovic closed out the half, sending Serbia into the break at 14-0.

The third quarter brought the only moment Slovenia’s bench had reason to celebrate. Nikola Lukic and Nemanja Stanojevic first stretched the score to 16-0, before Enej Potocnik converted one of Slovenia’s rare attacks for a goal that, at that point, felt like a win in itself for the visitors. Serbia answered with another run and took the quarter 9-1, making it a commanding 23-1 heading into the final eight minutes.

Nothing changed in the last quarter either. Martinovic added two more goals, while Zoran Bozovic, Vucinic, Stanojevic, Dimitrijevic, Vuk Conkic, Trtovic and Urosevic all found the net as well. Serbia took the final period 9-0, closing out the match at 32-1.

Urosevic and Dimitrijevic were Serbia’s most productive scorers, with five goals apiece. Vucinic and captain Martinovic each added four, Trtovic scored three, and Luka Pljevancic, Stanojevic, Milojevic and Lukic each found the net twice. Bozovic, Gavrilovic and Conkic each scored once.

Vujasinovic summed up the win after the final whistle:

“With all due respect, Slovenia is far below our level, but I have to praise the boys because they played a serious match from start to finish. I think that’s very important for the start of the tournament. We have a day off next, then a tougher training session against Spain, and after that we face Montenegro, which will more or less be the real start of the Mediterranean Games for us.”

Montenegro arrives thirty minutes before kickoff, then grinds past Greece

While Serbia was routing Slovenia, Montenegro was fighting through a tight contest against Greece in the same group, eventually winning 16-14, with quarter scores of 4-3, 5-2, 3-4 and 4-5. Before the match, the Montenegrin team ran into a problem rarely seen at this level of competition: the bus carrying them missed the pool, and the squad arrived on site roughly half an hour before the start, sharing the same vehicle with their Greek opponents.

Head coach Dejan Savic offered no excuses after the win.

“It’s true we had bad luck getting here, but the Greeks were on the same bus with us. We arrived literally half an hour before the match, and that’s no excuse at all. From the start you could see a disastrous approach, and you can’t play like this.”

What bothered him more than the late arrival, though, was the number of goals his side conceded.

“Conceding 14 goals against a Greece like this one says it all. It’s time for criticism, time to wake up. We trained for three months for this competition, and if the boys don’t understand where they are, we might as well go home right now.”

Savic already had an eye on Sunday, when his team faces Serbia, and aimed a warning directly at his own bench, saying, “If we keep playing like this, we’ll lose to Serbia by ten goals.”

What’s next in Group A

Group A at the Mediterranean Games in Taranto features Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Slovenia, alongside Group B, which includes Spain, France, Italy, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia played its match against Slovenia on Friday, August 28, at 4:00 PM, and the second round is now up next.

Serbia and Montenegro meet on Sunday, August 30, at 5:30 PM, and the match carries extra weight: the winner advances straight to the semifinals, while the loser has to fight through an additional playoff for placement. After that, on September 1 at 5:30 PM, Serbia faces Greece, the team that gave Montenegro far more trouble than the final score suggested.

A 31-goal margin over Slovenia is a striking number for the standings, but Sunday’s derby is the game that actually carries weight. Montenegro conceded 14 goals to Greece, and Savic made no secret that it worries him, while Serbia showed in the opening round that concentration is not an issue even once the result is long decided. On paper, the favorite is clear, but paper doesn’t count in the pool. Quarters do, and Vujasinovic’s team played the first four exactly the way its coach asked.