The U.S. men's water polo team opened the Paris Olympics against Italy, the silver medalists in this year's World Championships. The Italians proved why they're considered a medal favorite this year, defeating Team USA, 12-8, on Sunday.
Hannes Daube got the U.S. on the board first with an extra-player goal less than two minutes into the contest. Italy responded with three unanswered goals and ended the first quarter up, 4-2.
Both teams scored just one goal each in the second quarter as the U.S. tried to keep it close. Things changed in the third. Three different players scored four goals to give Italy a 9-4 lead heading into the fourth.
“For three quarters we played excellent in defense," said Italy coach Alessandro Campagna. "They couldn't score, only from when they had an extra man. We were performing at a very high level.
“Ben Hallock is the key for their team, so the plan was to make sure he couldn't receive too many balls. We also had to be careful with Hannes Daube, a good shooter, and in the end he still made three goals."
The Americans outscored Italy, 4-3, in the fourth, but were ultimately unable to overcome the deficit.
"It was definitely a very physical game. That's just how the Italian team play," said USA's Max Irving. "They play with a lot of intensity and extremely high energy. They're physical, they're a great team and they try to take you out of your game... They want to make you definitely very frustrated. You have to give them credit. They're great players."
Francesco di Fulvio, Tommaso Gianazza, and Matteo Iocchi Gratta had two goals each for Italy. Keeper Marco del Lungo had nine saves.
The U.S. was led by Daube, who finished with three goals on three shots. Alex Bowen and Max Irving added two goals each, and Adrian Weinberg had eight saves in goal.
The U.S. squad came to the Olympics following a ninth-place finish at the most recent World Championships. They finished sixth in the Tokyo Olympics, their best Olympic finish since winning silver in 2008.
Team USA (0-1) will look for win No. 1 on Tuesday, July 30, when they take on Romania at 10:35 a.m. ET. Italy (1-0) will face Croatia on Tuesday at 6:05 a.m. ET.
"Moving forward, we can learn a lot from this game," Irving said. "We now understand the level of intensity, noise, and things we're going to have to come to terms with if we want to be able to play well and perform well at these Olympics."
“It's important to get off to a winning start, but in less than 48 hours we're playing Croatia, so I'm now just looking forward to that," Campagna said.