Novi Beograd Beats Spandau to Reach Champions League

The opening quarter in the pool in Oradea gave no hint of an easy night, 6-6, not a goal between the two sides. Then Vasilije Martinovic and Viktor Urosevic took over the ball and the game, and Novi Beograd never let go of control again.

Novi Beograd’s water polo team beat Germany’s Spandau 21-14 in the second round of the qualifying tournament in Romania, with quarter scores of 6-6, 7-3, 5-3 and 3-2, and with that result secured a spot in the Champions League group stage with a round of the tournament still to play. The second and third quarters, when Novi Beograd won 7-3 and then 5-3, were played in a way that settled the outcome long before the final horn.

Martinovic and Urosevic each finished the match with four goals, while Miroslav Perkovic added three. A shortened bench in the final quarter, once the gap was already decided, showed the coach has more than one attacking line to call on.

A second dominant showing in Oradea

This is already the second dominant performance by the New Belgrade side at this tournament. In the first round they beat France’s Strasbourg 15-12, a match in which Martinovic scored six goals and pushed the team toward qualification, as this newsroom reported in the article “Martinovic’s Six Goals Push Novi Beograd Toward the Champions League.” That job has now been finished, and without needing to wait for the last round.

The group’s final match, against host Oradea, is scheduled for Sunday at 11:30 a.m., but it carries no competitive weight at all. Novi Beograd goes into that game with its group stage ticket already secured, which gives the coach room to rotate the squad and rest the players who carried the heaviest load in the first two matches.

Radnicki already there, Novi Beograd’s turn now

With its Champions League berth, Novi Beograd joins Radnicki of Kragujevac, which had already secured its own place in the elite competition earlier. Serbian water polo will therefore have two representatives in the group stage of Europe’s strongest club competition next season. For the club from Block 45, it is confirmation that it is building its season seriously rather than match by match, since two rounds and two dominant wins were enough to earn a spot among the elite before the tournament had even finished.

There is an extra reason to celebrate in where the final tournament will be held. The Champions League final tournament is being played in Belgrade, which means that, if the season’s arrangements fall into place, Novi Beograd will get the chance to fight for the biggest club trophy in front of its own crowd. For a team that has settled two matches this fall before they even became uncertain, that is reason enough to train with a clear goal in mind over the coming months.

The road to the group stage turned out shorter than it had to be. The qualifying tournament’s rules call for three rounds, but Novi Beograd did not need to wait for the last one to know where it will play in the spring. Two rounds, two wins by at least seven goals, and the job was done. That is the difference between a team hoping to qualify and a team that plans it out for itself.

Until then, the next test comes on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. A formality on paper, but also a chance for the club’s reserves to get minutes ahead of a season in which Novi Beograd will play against the best on the continent. Judging by the first two matches in Oradea, the club from Block 45 is entering that season with a far clearer picture of itself than it had when this tournament began.