The 2024 Men's

European Water Polo Championship The European Water Polo Championship is a sport competition for national water polo teams, currently held biannually and organized by the Ligue Européenne de Natation (LEN), the governing European aquatics federation. There are both men's and wo ...

was the 36th edition of the tournament, held in

Dubrovnik Dubrovnik, historically known as Ragusa, is a city in southern Dalmatia, Croatia, by the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, a Port, seaport and the centre of the Dubrovni ...

and

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

, Croatia from 4 to 16 January 2024. Originally,

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

had been selected as host and the competition was slated to be held in

Netanya Netanya () () or Natanya (), is a city in the "Planet Bekasi" Central District (Israel), Setanyahu of Israel, Israel BAB ih, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa, between the Poleg stre ...

, from 3 to 16 January 2024. Due to security concerns after the breakout of the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

, LEN announced the Championship would be hosted elsewhere.

Host selection

The championship was originally going to be held in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

, Israel between 7 and 21 October 2023 (although it would still be called the 2024 European Championship). But on 31 March 2023, it was moved to the Israeli city of

and rescheduled for 3 to 16 January 2024 at the Wingate Institute Olympic swimming pool. This decision was made to reduce the travel costs for the participating teams and make sure there was only one stoppage during the season instead of two (due to the

2024 World Aquatics Championships The 2024 World Aquatics Championships, the 21st edition of the World Aquatics Championships, were held in Doha, Qatar, from 2 to 18 February 2024. Originally scheduled to be held in November 2023, the championships were postponed until February ...

being held in February 2024). However, after the

broke out, LEN said they would monitor the situation on 12 October. But on 2 November, LEN announced that the tournament would not be hosted in Israel. After that announcement,

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

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Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

(city not known) and

had been reported as possibly interested in hosting the championships Croatia was announced as the host on 17 November, with

and

as venues. Croatia became the first country to host the men's championships twice in a row.

Format

This was the first edition with teams sorted into two Divisions, based on the last edition and the qualifiers. The top eight teams made Division 1 and the other eight teams Division 2. Both divisions were split into two groups of four teams. The top two teams from each group of Division 1 advanced directly to the quarterfinals, while the other two teams from each group played against one of the top two sides from each group in Division 2 in a play-off round. Starting with quarterfinals onward, the regular knock-out system was used.

Qualification

Sixteen teams competed at the main event. * The host nation * The top eight teams from the 2022 European Championship not already qualified as host nation * Final seven from the qualifiers. All sixteen teams from

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

qualified again.

Venues

This tournament marked the first time that the championships was held in more than one venue, with Dubrovnik and Zagreb hosting games. The latter hosted the games from the quarter finals onwards.

Draw

The draw was held on 12 September 2023 in

, Israel. Division 1 The pots for Division 1 were decided by the rankings of the 2022 European Championship Division 2 The seeding for Division 2 was decided by who finished first and second in the qualifiers (excluding Israel).

Squads

Preliminary round

The schedule was announced on 24 November 2023. ''All times are local (

UTC+1 +01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time * West Africa Time * Western European Summer Time **Brit ...

).''

Division 1

Group A

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Group B

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Division 2

Group C

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Group D

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Knockout stage

Bracket

Playoffs

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13–16th place bracket

13–16th place semifinals

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15th place game

13th place game

9–12th place bracket

9–12th place semifinals

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Eleventh place game

Ninth place game

Quarterfinals

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5–8th place bracket

5–8th place semifinals

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Seventh place game

Fifth place game

Semifinals

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Third place game

Final

Final standings

Spain qualified for the

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

as the highest ranked team not yet qualified for the event. Croatia, Montenegro and Romania secured the three remaining European tickets to the

Awards and statistics

Top goalscorers

Awards

The awards were announced on 16 January 2024.

Marketing

On 7 December 2023, the Croatian Water Polo Federation announced the logo for the event. Logo was inspired by

Croatian interlace The Croatian interlace or Croatian wattle, known as the or in Croatian, is a type of interlace, most characteristic for its three-ribbon pattern. It is one of the most often used patterns of Croatian pre-Romanesque art and architecture. Ove ...

and slogan of the championship was: "Waves of Unity".

References

External links

Official website
{{European championships in 2024

Men A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy. Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the fa ...

Men's European Water Polo Championship Men's European Water Polo Championship

2024 in Croatian sport International water polo competitions hosted by Croatia International water polo competitions held in Zagreb Sport in Dubrovnik