​Romania was defeated by Italy 16-10 (4-3, 4-4, 5-2, 3-1) on Friday in their final Group D match at the men’s World Cup. Water polo championship from Doha (Qatar).

“Tricolor” played very well in the first half and was only one goal behind the valuable Italian team (7-8), which, however, excelled in the last two quarters.

Vlad Georgescu (3 goals), Tudor Fulea (2), Matei Lucescu (2), Andrej Prioteasa (1), Silvian Kolodrovski (1) and Andrej Niamtsa (1) scored for the team coached by Bohdan Rath.

Italian goals were scored by Francesco Di Fulvio (5), Lorenzo Bruni (2), Francesco Condemi (2), Matteo Iocchi Gratta (2), Alessandro Velotto (1), Nicolas Presciutti (1), Gonzalo Echenike (1), Vincenzo Renzuto ( 1) and Giacomo Canella (1).

After 8-15 with Hungary, 25-3 with Kazakhstan and 10-16 with Italy, Romania finished third in the group with 3 points, ahead of Hungary, 8 points, Italy, 7 points, but ahead of Kazakhstan (zero points).

The group winners advance directly to the quarter-finals, the second- and third-placed teams play in a quarter-final play-off, and the last-placed teams qualify for places 13-16.

Romania will play Group C runner-up Montenegro in the playoffs on Sunday if the United States does not beat Serbia in Friday afternoon’s game.

The first four participants of the World Cup, who have not yet qualified for the 2024 Olympics, will receive tickets to Paris.

France, Hungary, Greece, Spain, Japan, USA, Australia and South Africa have already qualified for the 2024 Olympics.

At the European Championship in Croatia last month, the “tricolors” took 8th place. Romania was defeated by Montenegro 18-11 in the match for positions 5-8, informs Agerpres.

Know:

• We will remind you that Romania returned to the World Championship after 11 years, taking 13th place in 2013.