The national water polo candidates will finish their preparations in Kragujevac on Saturday, and on Sunday they will move to the “most favorite” part of the preparations in Kranj. The main role will be played by Dajana Zoretić, an expert in fitness preparations. After about ten days of work, the team will travel to Athens to prepare with the Greek national team.
– The most important thing is that we are together and that most of the players are healthy. It is known that Nikola Jakšić and Dušan Mandić had problems with injuries. At the end of the half-season, they played two or three games, they are entering the training process and I hope that they will soon join the maximum work – says coach Uroš Stevanović.
There will be barely 35 days between the start of preparations and the start of the championship. The national team competition is once again in the middle of the club season.
– For us coaches, the preparation time is short, for the players it is too much. It is the same for all teams, the interruption of the club season is not a novelty. We will look to correct the things from Paris and Singapore that were not right
The fact that the game is being played in Belgrade can be an additional motivation but also pressure. Stevanović was an assistant to Dejan Savić in 2016. However, it is completely wrong to view Belgrade 26 through previous competitions in the Serbian capital. This team has returned to the top of world water polo.
– The pressure you mention cannot be greater than the pressure we impose on ourselves. I believe that we will use the voice from the stands as a wind at our backs, such support always means something.
National team captain Nikola Jakšić reflected on the start of the work:
– I almost left because of an injury, but you can immediately see that the atmosphere is good. The mood is right and it will depend, to be honest, on the intensity of the work. We know what awaits us and what we are preparing for, so there will be no problems.
Jakšić has been to Kranj several times. Next comes work on physics, which is not exactly on the list of nice things to do during the preparations.
– Nobody likes that work, but we’ll survive those ten days. It’s a mandatory part, necessary to do good things.
When it comes to goals, the captain’s answer is the same from competition to competition:
– The goals are always maximum. Otherwise, we shouldn’t even play. Everything depends on us. I’m glad that we will play in front of a full Arena. Few of us have played in such an environment, we will have to adapt quickly as a team and I believe that everything will be fine – concluded Jakšić.
The time until the European Championship (January 10 – 26) will pass quickly. It is to be expected that the team will be ready for a new challenge that has nothing to do with the previous Belgrade stories. Everything is different except for ambitions, and this team has shown that it has quality, top players and that it deserves support in its efforts to achieve the right result in January.
