Serbia vs. Croatia Olympic Preview

Serbia v Croatia (M)

Day 4 of the men’s tournament will treat water polo fans to a rematch of the gold medal game from Rio as reigning Olympic champion Serbia meets ‘16 runner up Croatia in a pivotal Group B matchup. Both teams currently have claimed 4 points in the group, but need all they can get moving forward when securing a spot in the quarterfinals in this group may come down to goal differential. Croatia looked to have recovered their normal form in a win against Montenegro after suffering a surprising loss to Australia earlier in the week, and they will need to maintain that edge if they hope to unseat the Serbians. The Serbs, despite suffering a close loss to Spain, have made a strong argument that they are in the conversation of Olympic champions in their wins over Australia and Kazakhstan.

  • There is no shortage of experience in the pool for this game. These two teams are the two oldest in the tournament and feature many athletes on both sides who are likely competing in their final Olympics. 9 players on the Croatian side and 10 on the Serbian side have competed in at least one prior Olympics.

  • The Serbian team is loaded with talented players, but Rasovic and Pijetlovic have led the offense for the Serbian side so far, each contributing 7 goals. Look for captain Filip Filipovoc as well as Prlainovic and lefty Mandic to also contribute on offense for the Serbians.

  • Croatia has gotten major scoring output—8 goals a piece—from Fatovic, Bukic and Jokic in these Olympics, but it's the Croatian defense that has really tightened up when the team has needed it. That effort has been led by veteran keeper Marko Bijac. His 29 saves are the best in the group so far and third best in the tournament.

  • These two teams last met in December 2019 in group play of the World League European Qualification. In that game, Serbia used a strong scoring effort in the first and third quarters to secure the win over Croatia, 15-11.

SRB Keys

Serbia is scoring power plays at an astronomical rate of 75%. Additionally, serbia is holding their opponents to a 35% scoring rate on power plays. If they continue to draw exclusions and convert at 75%, and hold their opponents to 35% it will be hard for Croatia to beat them.

CRO Keys

Though Croatia is not converting their power plays nearly as well as serbia (46%), Croatia is holding their opponents power plays to a ridiculous 25%! However, Croatia’s opponents average +3.33 more exclusions per game. Croatia needs to limit the power play opportunities for Serbia.

While both teams have a tremendous ability to score from the perimeter, Serbia has proven to have a more dominant perimeter shooting arsenal (56% shooting vs CRO 46%). However, this will be a physical game and there will likely be a lot of exclusions, so it will likely come down to which team has a better power play conversion rate on offense and defense. 


Joey Gullikson