Final to open for Germany
You couldn’t have picked a much better time for the World Swimming Championships. There’s not much going on in the sporting world at the moment. King football is taking a break in large parts of the world, so we can take care of the World Cup in water polo. On Tuesday, the German team will play its first group match against the Japanese team.
The starting position in this Group B is clear. The group winner qualifies directly for the quarter-finals. The second and third-placed teams will reach the round of 16 and the last-placed team will then only play in the placement round. For the newly formed German team, the goal can only be to advance to the play-offs via position three.
Petar Porobic’s team cannot speak of a lucky draw. With Croatia and Greece, this group contains two big fish that the German team will hardly be able to compete with.
However, the Asians are not to be underestimated and have shown decent performances at the last big tournaments. Therefore, we expect a match on equal terms that can go either way. Overall, we are more inclined to bet on a win for the Japanese in the match between Germany and Japan.
Germany – Statistics & current form
The German team is an absolute surprise package at the World Cup in Hungary. The world’s best are a few swims away anyway, but with Petar Porobic’s team in a state of flux, expectations should not be set too high in the preliminary round at the Debrecen Swimming Pool Complex, especially as Germany will only be a virtual latecomer at these title fixtures after the Russian team was excluded.
As a latecomer to the World Championships
The self-confidence of the German team has not exactly been fired up lately. In March, they clearly missed out on participation in the World League with two clear defeats against Spain and France. In the last test match, however, Germany at least sold itself well. During a joint training camp in Duisburg, the DSV team lost to the Olympic sixth-placed team from the USA with a score of 10:12.
For a long time, Germany kept up well in the rain of the Duisburg outdoor pool and was still ahead in the third quarter. In the end, Jan Rotermund was the best scorer of the German team with three goals. If they manage to perform similarly against Japan on Tuesday, they will certainly have to check the odds between Germany and Japan on a success for the German men.
However, the personnel bloodletting before this World Cup was enormous. Julian Real, Dennis Eidner, Tobias Preuß, Hannes Schulz, Ben Reibel, Lucas Gielen or Marin Restovic are no longer part of the squad. Against this background, the Berliners Marko Stamm and Mateo Cuk could have been used very well. However, both had to cancel their participation in the World Cup due to injury.
Predicted line-up of Germany:
Götz, Schenkel – Kubisch, Rotermund, Schipper, Schütze, Bozic, Jüngling, Strelezkij, Dolff, Gansen, Küppers, Korbel – Coach: Porobic
Japan – Statistics & current form
When you host the Olympic Games in your own country, you naturally try to strengthen your team as the host. That’s what the Japanese did before last year’s Summer Games and even though the Land of the Rising Sun has not been a stronghold in water polo for a long time, this team has developed into an unpleasant opponent
Ranked tenth at the Olympics
Quasi by direct mandate, the Japanese have also participated in the Super Finals of the World League in recent years and have thus played high-level matches more often. Of course, the Japanese are not one of the big teams in water polo, but you can certainly consider the odds on a Japanese success in the match between Germany and Japan.
The Japanese Poseidon, as the team is called, played their last official matches at the Olympic Games last year in Tokyo, where they automatically qualified as hosts. However, after only one win from five matches, they only managed tenth place. However, they also held their own against Greece and the United States for a long time.
One advantage of the Japanese is the almost complete block formation of the team. A large part of the team is recruited from Kingfisher 74, so the players should be familiar with the routines and the automatisms should be right. Only one player, Seiyi Adachi, has had experience with a European team. He was temporarily under contract with the Romanian club Digi Oradea.
Predicted line-up of Japan:
Tanamura, Fukushima – Iida, Okawa, Higa, Arai, Adachi, Yoshida, Takada, Kawamoto, Suzuki, Miyazawa, Inaba, Koppu – Coach: Omoto
Germany – Japan Direct Comparison / H2H Balance
The water polo teams from Germany and Japan have hardly ever had the opportunity to test their strength against each other in recent years. Germany did not compete at the Olympic Games and the DSV men are only spectators in the World League. To date, there have only been two matches in which the two rivals have met in the pool.
In 2018, there was a 14:9 victory for the German men at the World Cup, not to be compared with the World League or the World Cup. At the last World Cup in 2019, this duel also took place in the preliminary round. At that time, they parted with a 9:9 draw. Behind Italy, Germany entered the round of 16 in second place and Japan finished third.
Germany – Japan Tip
The opening match already has immense significance for the German team. Against Croatia and Greece, there is little to be gained with a newly formed team. If Petar Porobic’s team wants to make it to the last 16, they will have to get at least a point against the Japanese. A defeat would be tantamount to elimination from the preliminary round.
The team from the Far East has clearly improved towards the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Many high-level matches against strong opponents have given the Japanese a boost in their development.
We expect the two teams to be on an equal footing for long stretches, however, and that neither team will be able to pull far ahead in the course of the match. The bookmakers also see the Asians in front and that is why we have also decided to play the betting odds on tip 2 in the duel Germany vs Japan.
