RRI Sports Club – An absolute first for Romania’s water polo teams
Romanias water polo champion team CSM Digi Oradea has scored an absolute first in their career.
Florin Orban, 06.11.2013, 13:45
Romania’s water polo champion team CSM Digi Oradea has scored an absolute first in their career. At the endpoint of an exceptional performance in the competition’s preliminaries, CSM have made headway into the Champions League’s knockout stage.
CSM Oradea’s European adventure kick-started in Kragujevac, Serbia, in September, with the League’s preliminary first round. In Group B, the Romanians snatched three wins, against Hanover in Germany, in the game against French team Montpellier and in the confrontation against Montenegrin team Budva, respectively. CSM’s draw against Volgograd from Russia and the defeat they sustained against host team Radnicki was not a stumbling block for the Romanians to make headway into the competition.
In the second preliminary round, the northwestern Romanian city of Oradea played host to the Champions League’s Group D. This time the Romanians got it all right; since their scheduled games were home confrontations, CSM won all their scheduled matches, first the game against German side Duisburg, then the match against Marseille from France and the game against Hungary’s vice-champion team Szolnok.
In the qualifications’ third round, CSM Oradea took on yet another powerful contender, Sintez Kazan from Russia.In the tie’s first home game, CSM Oradea snatched a 13-to-8 win, while in Russia Sintez Kazan managed a 10 –7 win. On aggregate, however, the score line definitely favored the Romanians.
So Romania’s champion tem CSM Digi Oradea, for the first time ever, have made it into the Champions League’s knockout stage. In Group B, CSM will play against Galatasaray Istanbul, Wasserfreunde Spandau from Berlin, Italy’s Brescia and Serbian strongholds, Partizan Raiffeisem Belgrade. Joining them will be the winner of the game pitting Vouliagmeni from Greece against Radnicki Kragujevac from Serbia.
