As Field Narrows to Four, Pressure Builds on Contenders for Pan American Water Polo Gold

Lima, Monday, August 5, 2019 - Gustavo Guimaraes from Brazil reacts after he scored a goal during his Men’s Water Polo Group Phase match against Mexico at the Polideportivo Villa Maria del Triunfo at the Pan American Games Lima 2019. Copyright Marcos Brindicci / Lima 2019 Mandatory credits: Lima 2019 ** NO SALES ** NO ARCHIVES **
Brazil's Gustavo Guimaraes sports and Olympic tattoo from his experience in 2016. Photo Courtesy: Marcos Brindicci / Lima 2019

LIMA, PERU. The ultimate water polo opportunity—an Olympic berth—is now within grasp for four men’s teams at the 2019 Pan American Games. The question now is: who will seize the moment, win gold and qualify for the 2020 Games in Tokyo?

pan_american_logo.svgWith quarterfinal wins Thursday, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States emerged from the uneven play that has characterized almost a full week of competition at the Villa Maria del Triunfo Aquatics Complex. All except the Canadians—who experienced a brief scare in their match against Mexico before rallying for a 13-11 win—advanced comfortably to matches Friday.

Brazil beat Puerto Rico handily by a score of 13-4 and will meet Canada in one semifinal. Argentina was comfortably ahead all game before winning 9-7 over Cuba, while the USA cruised to a 24-2 win over host Peru. This sets up a second semifinal between Argentina and the U.S.

All the contenders have flaws

In comments following his team’s lopsided win against Puerto Ricans, where Gustavo Guimaraes scored four times and Gustavo Coutinho collected three, Brazil Head Coach Ricardo Azevedo put it bluntly: no one is a favorite here in Lima.

“It’s 50-50 with anybody here,” he said. “You saw the Canadian vs. U.S. game; it was one 6 on 5 away from being 12-12.”

[USA Men Go Up Big Against Canada, Hold on for Win at Day Two of Pan American Water Polo Action]

Azevedo’s squad is young and inexperienced—as he pointed out, the Brazil team has six players under the age of 22, with five of them competing in a major international competition for the first time—and at times has struggled to score. The Brazilians have relied on Guimaraes (14 goals), a veteran of the 2016 Rio Olympics, for almost a third of their 51 goals scored thus far. Azevedo spoke of defense as being the difference maker for his team—they’ve allowed a tournament-low 18 goals against in four games.

According to their coach, the decisive factor for the Brazilians is 41-year-old goalie Slobodan Soro. A veteran of three Olympics—two with Serbia and one with Brazil, the cagey goalie may be the difference if Azevedo’s team is to take gold at the Pan Ams for the first time since 1963.

“Soro is an equalizer,” Azevedo said of his goalie. “He’s not going to let you score the easy goals, You’re going to have to beat him.

[USA Men’s Water Polo At 2019 Pan American Games: Look Out for Brazil]

“That’s not easy to do when a player has the experience and background that he has.”

Then, appraising his team’s chances the rest of the way, the veteran of three national team programs added: “The bottom line is we have to execute our game plan, just like Canada, just like the U.S.”

Lima, Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - Ivey Arroyo from Cuba tries to reach Mark D' Souza from Canada during the Men's Group A Preliminary Waterpolo match at Villa María del Triunfo during Pan American Games Lima 2019. Copyright Paul Vallejos / Lima 2019 Mandatory credits: Lima 2019 NO SALES NO ARCHIVES **

Mark D’Souza (#11) kick-started the winning rally against Mexico. Photo Courtesy: Paul Vallejos /Lima 2019

Canada does not have as strong a goalie manning their cage, and it showed in a barn-burner of a contest against the Mexicans. Head Coach Omar Montiel Gutierrez saw his team twice sprint out to two-goal leads on the strength of outside shots by captain Oliver Alvarez Basillo.

After being down 9-8 midway through the third period, Mark D’Souza kick-started the rally with a blast past Mexican goalie Orlando Ortega Guadarrama. After Sinai Gonzalez Lara tied it for Mexico with a skip shot that eluded Canada’s Milan Radenovic, Porzio’s team reeled off three straight scores by Gaelan Patterson, Nicolas Constantin-Bicari and Matthew Thomas Halajian to keep alive hopes of a first Canadian Olympic berth since 2008.

Despite the loss, the Mexican coach was pleased with his team’s performance.

“We know the potential of this group—ending this game with Canada for me is a great victory,” Gutierrez, who has only been leading the team the past six months, said. “The way we played today—the commitment with defense—everybody was focused 100%.”

Canadian Head Coach Giuseppe Porzio could only breathe a sigh of relief and focus on his team’s positives.

“For me it was important in this kind of game—a playoff game—first to win,” he said. “Second was the team grew up in the game. We gave up eight goals in the first [half] and only three in the second.”

Argentina vs. US: experience against youth

Argentina won 9-7 over Cuba to return to the Pan American semifinals for the second straight time, and will face the Americans. Three players—Ivan Martin Carabantes (9), Carlos Exequiel Camnasio (8) and German Ignacio Yanez (8)—have accounted for 60% of the squad’s 41 goals. Yanez (39) and Carabantes (33) and Ramiro Andres Veich (31), the three most experienced players on Head Coach Daniel Alberto Poggi’s squad, each logged almost 30 minutes in the Cuba match—indicating there’s not much depth to the Argentine squad.

Lima, Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - USA Waterpolo team during the Men's Group A Preliminary Waterpolo match at Villa María del Triunfo during Pan American Games Lima 2019. Copyright Paul Vallejos / Lima 2019 Mandatory credits: Lima 2019 NO SALES NO ARCHIVES **

The Americans hope to come out of the shadows. Photo Courtesy: Paul Vallejos / Lima 2019

The Americans appear to be the strongest side here in Lima, and they’ve faced the stiffest challenge so far, winning 13-11 over Canada in group play. They boast four scorers in double digits—Hannes Daube (12 goals), Johnny Hooper (12), Ben Hallock (11) and Alex Bowen (10)—but they too are inexperienced. Only four of their players—Bowen, Luca Cupido, captain Jesse Smith and Alex Obert—have competed in Pan Ams before.

How his young team responds to pressure may prove to be decisive for Head Coach Dejan Udovicic’s team, a concern which he referenced after his team’s win over Peru.

“We are dealing with this day-to-day and it’s naturally gonna come with playing more games,” Udovicic, who has taken three teams to the Olympics, said. “Each athlete has to deal with this as an individual.”

He added that he’s confident that his team, whose average age without the 36-year-old Smith is 24, is on the right track.

Lima, Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - Jose Loubier from Puerto Rico struggles for the ball with Alexander Bowen from USA during the Men's Group A Preliminary Waterpolo match at Villa María del Triunfo during Pan American Games Lima 2019. Copyright Paul Vallejos / Lima 2019 Mandatory credits: Lima 2019 NO SALES NO ARCHIVES **

The USA’s Alex Bowen (white cap) against Puerto Rico’s Jose Loubriel Cuyar. Photo Courtesy: Paul Vallejos / Lima 2019

Providing a thoughtful context to the experience here was Bowen, with Smith the most well-traveled player on the American side. With professional stints in Romania, Italy and Croatia, Bowen is just 26 but appears wise beyond his years.

“A lot of it is being adaptable,” he said about the pressures of tournament play. “The situation changes so frequently just within the day…. being able to relax, understand that we’re going to have our hour in the pool, our times to get ready, allow us to focus on what we need to do.”

Bowen then acknowledged that being the favorite is not always the best position to be in.

“It’s easier in some respects to be the underdog fighting up against everybody—sometimes it’s harder to be the top team and put everybody in their place.”

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