Greece beat Hungary 9-6 in the water polo semifinal on Friday paving the way to a guaranteed medal against Serbia in the final.
Stylianos Agryropoulos Kanakakis scored four times and Emmanouil Zerdevas made seven saves paving the way to silver or gold in Sunday’s final at 5.30pm (AEST).
“History has been written. This is history for Greece,” Genidounias said. “The only thing that remains is to see if it’s gold letters or silver letters,” according to AP.
Greece will play Serbia who beat Spain 10-9 and will be looking to defend their gold medal win at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I think that we cannot stop here,” Greece coach Theodoros Vlachos said. “We have to fight like crazy in the final. We want to hear our anthem at the end.”
Greece has never won a medal at the Olympics with its previous best result being fourth at the 2004 Athens Games.
Water polo is the oldest team sport at the Olympics and Greece has shown great form with its fifth straight win, including a win over Hungary on 25 July 10-9.
Hungary’s captain Denes Varga was surprised by their loss stating “To be honest, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that Greece can beat us twice during one tournament.”
“I thought that we made a step forward and were able to make the difference, but they were impeccable, hands down. I wish them to win the final,” Varga said.
The game was tied at 5 a piece after Hungary’s Manhercz scored with 6:32 left on the clock. Greece’s Ioannis Fountoulis and Angelos Vlachopoulos’ then responded with two goals to make it 7-5 with 5:07 remaining.
Dimitrios Skoumpakis sealed the win with a long range shot, making it 9-6 and making Greece’s medal chance inevitable.
“I think Hungary has some legends inside its roster. We had, I think, more passion, more will to win,” Zerdevas said. “I think that games don’t have tactics, they have heart, and I think that today we were better. It was our day.”
