There is not much to say about his game. Our results are measured in the strategy that our coach designs and in this game we definitely didn’t follow them. The strategy was that both positions 2 and 4 would help at a 50% the 2 meter defense player (me) depending where the ball was and position 3 would help at a 25%. The 2 meter offence Serbian player knew how to play water polo, I’m not going to lie, he was good. Even though Serbia shot well from the 5m line, their main game was to play with the 2m offence. In the first quarter I ended up with two expulsions.
Tony started to lose his patience, we were losing by more than 8 goals. Tony is a coach that wants everything to be perfect, he wants everything to give their maximum and only few player do this in our team until now (exactly 5/13). Tony knows everyone’s potential and many of the players are not proving that to him so he starts shouting and making decisions that are not necessarily the best (in my opinion) like placing almost all of the bench at once. But once again, Tony is a great coach, he has more than 30 years of experience so he knows what needs to be done. Some player in our team have their moral low or at least they have it average but as soon as they touch the water it gets low and they don’t play like they know how to play so they get screamed at easily. I am not a player like that, but I learned to filter the information given to me and keep what I really need.
The thing is that in the third quarter, Tony says “All of the subs in, including Pecho (our second goalie) and to complete the team some one else from the starting team that is willing to play with their heart”. Without even looking at my pears I jumped in the water. The game was steady, surprisingly Gonzales makes an expulsion and we have a 6 on 5 play. In this play I scored the first goal. I realized that we had just scored with the subs, so the main team should be able to score, it wasn’t that difficult. In the next play, Javier makes a strange shot from outside 5m and scores a weird goal but as we say, goal is goal. The next play, Diego who plays in the starting team entered and made me a great pass (I was playing in the 2 meter offense), I turned my opponent and stayed in front of the goalie. I don’t know how but I missed, I got very pissed off after that. Well, the game kept on playing, it was a fair quarter Serbia didn’t score almost any goal and then Diego creates a penalty and scores our third goal. 3 goals in just one quarter, nobody in the bench believes it, but I did and Diego did. Everything is in your head, if you think its possible and play with your heart, its possible. When our team has its moral at its highest point we play well, player feel good, we play like a team. I think that is something that Tony needs to realize and somehow have a plan to lift those players. As the captain I try, its hard, but not impossible.
The game ended 24-3, bad score. The only thing that stands out was our third quarter, nothing else. I stayed the whole game since the 1st quarter with two expulsions; I need to learn not to get expelled so easily and position myself correctly. To finish up, the referees were in favor of Serbia, it is reasonable that they were, Serbia has history in water polo, they just won the Euro League and Peru is just another country for them. This made us realize once more that when we play with them in the world cup we are going to have the play hard so that the refs realize that we are putting effort and that Serbia is not 21 goals better than us.
Tony started to lose his patience, we were losing by more than 8 goals. Tony is a coach that wants everything to be perfect, he wants everything to give their maximum and only few player do this in our team until now (exactly 5/13). Tony knows everyone’s potential and many of the players are not proving that to him so he starts shouting and making decisions that are not necessarily the best (in my opinion) like placing almost all of the bench at once. But once again, Tony is a great coach, he has more than 30 years of experience so he knows what needs to be done. Some player in our team have their moral low or at least they have it average but as soon as they touch the water it gets low and they don’t play like they know how to play so they get screamed at easily. I am not a player like that, but I learned to filter the information given to me and keep what I really need.
The thing is that in the third quarter, Tony says “All of the subs in, including Pecho (our second goalie) and to complete the team some one else from the starting team that is willing to play with their heart”. Without even looking at my pears I jumped in the water. The game was steady, surprisingly Gonzales makes an expulsion and we have a 6 on 5 play. In this play I scored the first goal. I realized that we had just scored with the subs, so the main team should be able to score, it wasn’t that difficult. In the next play, Javier makes a strange shot from outside 5m and scores a weird goal but as we say, goal is goal. The next play, Diego who plays in the starting team entered and made me a great pass (I was playing in the 2 meter offense), I turned my opponent and stayed in front of the goalie. I don’t know how but I missed, I got very pissed off after that. Well, the game kept on playing, it was a fair quarter Serbia didn’t score almost any goal and then Diego creates a penalty and scores our third goal. 3 goals in just one quarter, nobody in the bench believes it, but I did and Diego did. Everything is in your head, if you think its possible and play with your heart, its possible. When our team has its moral at its highest point we play well, player feel good, we play like a team. I think that is something that Tony needs to realize and somehow have a plan to lift those players. As the captain I try, its hard, but not impossible.
The game ended 24-3, bad score. The only thing that stands out was our third quarter, nothing else. I stayed the whole game since the 1st quarter with two expulsions; I need to learn not to get expelled so easily and position myself correctly. To finish up, the referees were in favor of Serbia, it is reasonable that they were, Serbia has history in water polo, they just won the Euro League and Peru is just another country for them. This made us realize once more that when we play with them in the world cup we are going to have the play hard so that the refs realize that we are putting effort and that Serbia is not 21 goals better than us.