Our first match in the Pre-World cup stage started with Turkey B. This team started its tournament with Croatia, great game to watch; lots of positive and aggressive attitude.
In the national team I am the two-meter defense, Tony, my coach always tells me that I am the only one in the team that can play this position. This was my first error in the game. The game started, we won the possession of the ball and immediately I made a sprint and ended as a second two-meter offence or “boya”. We lost the ball and Nick (wp2) ended up guarding the two meter player. We recovered the ball position and went to attack, Diego (wp10) who plays in the 2 meter offense, didn’t enter to his position so, I sprinted again and entered. The second that I got in position, we lose the ball and sprint towards defense. This time Diego ended defending, and they scored us a goal. Tony, told me to get out of the pool and that my only job was to be the defense in the team, I cant to anything else. He ended by telling me “Repeat that to yourself 1000 times, when you finish, tell me and you can get back to the pool”. I didn’t play the rest of the 1st quarter.
In the second quarter, I was back in the pool. In the first play of the game, I got send to the 20 second foul line, meaning that my team was without a player for 20 seconds. I made the foul due to bad positioning, the Turks where slippery and I was guarding them by the arm and back. I got back in, started to swim, but this time I stayed in my position and if by any reason someone ended up in my position I knew that I had to swim even faster to make the change and organize my self better. While attacking there was a small gap between players so I got in the gap, got the ball, shot and scored! Tony told me that I had made the correct decision, if my player swam slow, I had to counter attack but once he got to his defense position, I had to be intelligent; if we lose the ball I needed to be back on my original position. This quarter ended 4-4.
In the third and fourth quarter I played better. Since the Turks where slippery I grabbed them by the bathing suit and play “harder”. I hadn’t been scored in the whole game but in the fourth quarter I reacted slower and wasn’t able to get to my position and a pass from position 1 (2m player) came. That same quarter a Turk punched me in the face because I stilled the ball from him, the referee didn’t do anything so I decided to do the same as the Turk and kicked him. I consider that to be one of my strengths, I am not afraid of my rivals.
In conclusion, the game was better than the average game play in the Pan-American games and in Serbia. Even though we lost 8-6 we played well and hard. The team is getting even more united, our goalie was fantastic and experience was gained. It is important that we realize how the referees arbitrate since it is completely different than in Peru, the games are tougher here, we have to be stronger.