The Malta waterpolo national team found the going tough against gold medal favourites Greece as they suffered a 25-6 defeat in their second outing at the European Championships in Split on Wednesday.
The Greeks side, who last year reached the final at the Tokyo Olympics, as expected proved too strong for the Maltese outfit and built their victory on a strong start to the match which saw them score 14 goals in the opening session to quickly wrap up the victory.
Matthew Zammit scores Malta’s first goal.
The Maltese side, on the other hand, recovered from a difficult start and started to come out more in the final two sessions with skipper Matthew Zammit again standing out with a hat-trick with the other goals coming from Ben Plumpton, James Gambin and Jeremy Abela.
Ben Plumpton scores against Greece.
After their 12-12 draw against France, the Greeks were looking to pile up the goals to ensure they would be in a strong position should their qualification would depend on goal difference with the French.
In fact, the Greeks came storming out of the blocks as they scored six goals without reply from as many attempts before Matthew Zammit pulled a goal back. Konstantinos Genidounias added two more goals for a commanding 8-1 scoreline.
Jeremy Abela scores a fine goal against Greece.
In the second session, the Greeks kept up their tempo as they managed to find the net six more times with the Maltese finding the net twice through Ben Plumpton and Jeremy Abela.
The third session, saw Malta managing to get more into the picture as the Greeks only added four goals with Matthew Zammit grabbing his team fourth goal.
In the final session, the Greeks stepped up their game again as they managed to add seven more goals to wrap up a strong performance.
Malta did manage to find the net twice through a Matthew Zammit penalty and a goal from Jamie Gambin.
Karl Izzo’s team will now end their group commitments on Friday against France.
