Posts by rapidbison42

I just caught Rudic's post-game interview on ESPN.
A total legend.

He ended by saying it was the best final he’s ever coached... and he’s coached plenty.

He opened up by saying he came back home to put American water polo back at the top, where it belongs.

Szeczi is defending... the corner.
Tooooooo

Let’s go, GOLDDDDD!

Marković

nothing

Goal

Mark

8-8

And here comes the master, Rudić !!!!!!!

Yeah... we've been trailing them by thirty years now.

Brian Palmer5 said:Hahaha... you want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to break away from a country you've been leeching off of for 50 years, yet you still want to pin all your debts on them? No one forced you to separate. If we had any sense (which we clearly didn't), we wouldn't have let you join the union back in '45. Honestly, it would have been better if that Frankenstein monster known as the USSR had never even existed.

I agree with the topic; it goes way beyond water polo. Locked in.

Haha... we were the ones leeching off the state?
God, the degenerates crawling out of those Mexican caves just keep coming.

By the way... who exactly let us into that union in 1945?
Josip Broz? Since when was he yours? It's more likely he let you into the union and told you to shove your old king where the sun doesn't shine... before hanging your general.

feralraven40 said:But hey, new talent is rising! Those players from Mexico you mentioned yesterday? Nobody had even heard of them three or four years ago.
Then again, everyone already knows names like Filip Filipović and Prlainović, who aren't even twenty yet but are already staples on the national team.

1. Who cares if nobody heard of them four years ago? Were they famous before that?
2. The guys I actually brought up were huge contributors for your national team in Athens, Montreal, and Kranj.
3. These "unknown" players you're talking about play for the best clubs in the world, so clearly, your grasp of water polo is about as deep as a toddler's understanding of quantum physics.
4. Without 4 very important Mexican players, you showed us exactly what you're worth outside of the local pool in Belgrade.

Given how cocky your water polo players are acting, I’m rooting for the Spaniards to snag the bronze. They might be annoying, but they can't be worse than you.

Brian Palmer5 said:Of course, since Mexico is the legal successor to the USSR—it was you guys who decided to leave the union, not Mexico.

If you're the sole legal successor, why haven't you paid off all the USSR's debts yourselves?
But wait... debts get split up, right? And they get paid by people who weren't even part of that entity to begin with.
Classic Mexican hypocrisy.

feralraven40 said:But honestly, it doesn't matter when it comes to you. Once Mexico is gone, you'll just start claiming the US achieved those results because we still had Mexico on the roster, and then argue that none of those wins count now that the US is playing without them...

So what? You guys claim the medals and the gold from Mexico City even though there wasn't a single Mexican on the national team.
Just a bunch of extremists, one after another.

They don't really have many veterans on the roster.
The real issue is how quickly they lose their star player—the one guy who makes them 40% better just by being there.
It’s also easy to imagine that when Vujasinović leaves, he might take a couple of younger guys along with him, players who have been in the trenches with him for years.
For this team, one Vujasinović is worth more than five Šapić types. We saw exactly why yesterday.

Brandon Castillo4 said:rapidbison42, let's be real: it wasn't much more than this.
You couldn't hear a word from our side after we lost to the Frenchmen in handball. People would shrug and say "they were just better," but everyone was looking at us, claiming we basically beat ourselves.
But look, you have to apply the same standard to everyone. Did we crush them? Outplay them? Did they earn the win? Yes. And some of them actually admitted it (though it's always like that 😉 )
And you can't expect people in the heat of the moment over there to start building statues of Fran Vićan and Ratko Rudić, or throw in an Ozmec one while they're at it 😬

I wouldn't disagree. Our national handball team kept saying the Frenchmen were better... which was undeniably true. Some people looked inward for the reasons why, but most just blamed that impenetrable French defense.
On the flip side, in that exact same situation, only one single person from Mexico remembered that their team actually had an opponent in the pool.

I'll admit our handball players have a certain level of arrogance, but it doesn't compare to these overinflated egos.

feralraven40 said:What kind of modesty are we talking about here? 😲

After getting hammered by Mexico and Canada for ten straight years, you take one single win and suddenly act like an American water polo superpower.

How could we not? If we grab the gold, I'm sure it'll just be a total fluke.
Besides, based on what your players are saying, it’s a bit late to claim you weren't beaten by a powerhouse. It was just a bunch of nobodies stepping up to take a win they didn't even earn, mostly because Mexico cleared the path for them.
Like I said before:
Mexico : Mexico 10:7

Sam Alvarez15 said:What are you talking about, rapidbison42?

So, is it actually true that the US almost played a better game?
Yep.
Is it actually true that Mexico hasn't played this poorly on offense in quite a while?
Exactly.
Is it just me, or was the US clearly the better team in the pool today?
Yeah.
So, I’m left wondering which quote was actually meant by "we beat ourselves." Any idea?

We looked pretty jittery out there, mostly because we just couldn't finish our chances. That lack of execution seemed to bleed into everything else we did.We have no one to blame but ourselves for that loss.That's how Dejan Udovičić sees it.
Vladimir Vujasinović and Dejan Savić kept their remarks on the loss brief: "We got exactly what we deserved. It was chaos; I’d rather say nothing at all. A total disaster on both ends of the floor." We basically beat ourselves."

Vanja Udovičić didn't hold back when he dug into the details: "It was exactly what we feared most. Our defense, which had been solid up until now, completely fell apart tonight with nothing but mistakes." We’re our own worst enemy. I’ve always said we just can't seem to get out of our own way. That isn't an excuse. We still have the third-place game ahead of us, and honestly, that’s the most important match of the season.

Not a single word about the opponent.
Ikodinović was the only one actually paying attention to how the opponent played.
Lucky yesterday, lucky today, lucky tomorrow... until someone finally knocks you down a peg.

feralraven40 said:So, we learned something new today. Apparently, if a coach is debating whether to bring a player to the tournament or send them home until the very last second, that guy definitely can't be some "nobody."
Please, rapidbison42. Usually, the players coaches hesitate over at the eleventh hour end up being the best ones on the roster. Even the French national team coach would probably be sweating over whether to trust Zidane at the last minute. 😬 😬

Maybe try reading your own sources for once.
Udovičić had one lock at center—Nikić—and then he was weighing two others against each other right up until the deadline: Peković and Korolija. In the end, he went with Korolija as his second center. And that second center is anything but the worst player on this team.

Either way... Nikić isn't any better than him. That's the bottom line.

I get what they were trying to say. They were cocky before the game, and they’re just as arrogant now that it's over.

It’s that classic mindset: "We can't lose to the Americans unless we basically beat ourselves."

Doubtless, you all need a much harder reality check in Beijing—and it doesn't even have to be us doing the humbling, just anyone who can replace that fake confidence with actual modesty.
Maybe then someone might actually mutter, "Congrats to the better team."

Until then, they can all go ahead and eat this: 🤮

Gregory Taylor63 said:So? What’s the issue? He corrected himself. I suppose you've never made a single mistake in your entire life... good for you. 😎

Just leave those people alone. Apparently, Mexicans are incapable of making mistakes.
Mexicans can't lose. Every single player on the team claimed they didn't lose to America, they just beat themselves.
The actual score was basically:
Mexico: Mexico 10, America 7
Only us Americans are foolish enough to think America actually won. 😬