Felipe Perrone enjoys fairy-tale finish to career as Spain win World Aquatics C'ships men's water polo gold
SINGAPORE – During his 20 days in Singapore, Felipe Perrone picked up an autobiography about the Republic's founding father Lee Kuan Yew to learn more about his leadership, the culture here and how the World Aquatics Championships (WCH) hosts evolved from Third World to First.
On July 24, the men's water polo legend capped his illustrious quarter-century-long career with a storybook ending as Spain beat Hungary 15-13 in a record-breaking final on July 24 for their fourth, and his second, world title.
Fittingly, in his last match before retirement, the 39-year-old ran down the clock in front of a sell-out crowd at the 3,000 seater OCBC Aquatic Centre, then turned on the afterburners to sprint clear and score his team's final goal of the match to seal victory in the most goal-laden WCH water polo final.
Finishing his final match with a perfect two goals from two shots, he told The Straits Times: 'This was really like a movie and I couldn't believe it. I'm so, so happy and so proud of the team.'
'I was crying for the last six months every time the guys said beautiful words about me. These are people whom I spent more time with than with my family, so to finish like this with them next to me was really special.'
Even the Hungarians congratulated and appreciated Perrone for his illustrious career as he stayed behind in the pool to receive a standing ovation from his Spanish teammates, before they and the coaching staff dived in, as a video tribute was played for him.
Hungary's Vince Pal Vigvari said: 'What's worth more than all the medals and all the achievements is the fact that we always firstly talk about what an amazing person he is – I think that's wonderful.'
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Having missed the 2025 World Cup triumph, the stalwart was convinced by his former captain and current Spain coach David Martin to delay his retirement because he would be of value to the team at the WCH.
And Perrone truly showed his leadership and ability to augment defence and attack and lead the team to glory.
The finalists had already met earlier in a Group B match on July 16 when Spain clawed back a 5-8 deficit to beat Hungary 10-9.
The final also started as a tight affair as world No. 1 Spain took advantage of their rivals' exclusions to score the first two goals, but third-ranked Hungary made it 5-5 at the end of the first period.
The goals dried up in the second quarter as Spain led 7-6 at half-time before four-time world champions Hungary rallied to edge ahead 10-9 at the end of the third period, although Perrone scored with a brilliant no-look shot for the last goal of the quarter to keep the opponents within sight.
While both teams committed to attack, there was an interesting difference in strategy as Spain relied heavily on star attackers Bernat Sanahuja and Alvaro Granados who split 10 goals equally, while Hungary had eight different scorers.
The final eight minutes was an expectedly intense finale, but Spain proved to be more clinical when they had one man up – outscoring Hungary 9-5 in the extra-player situations – as they finished stronger.
While Perrone leaves the pool for good and is '100 per cent sure' he will not return as coach, he leaves behind a strong legacy and big impact on his younger teammates.
Granados said: 'One of the most beautiful things that sport ever gave me was being able to be his friend and his roommate for the last four years.
'He has zero ego despite being one of the best players in history and always puts others ahead of him for the best of the group. We all learnt a lot from him. He's super humble, a super good person and a great friend.'
Deservedly, Sanahuja, who scored his five goals from just six shots, was named Player of the Final, while Granados was voted the tournament's Most Valuable Player. The top goalkeeper award went to Greek Panagiotis Tzortzatos, while the top scorer was Canada's 26-goal Reuel D'Souza.
Meanwhile, world No. 4 Greece recovered from their heartbreaking semi-final penalty shoot-out defeat by Spain to thump Olympic champions and fifth-ranked Serbia 16-7 to collect their third WCH bronze in the past decade.
Serbia could not recover in time from their own hangover after losing the other semi-final by a single goal to Hungary, and a run of eight goals conceded across the second and third quarters that left them trailing 2-10 proved fatal ultimately.
Greece captain Konstantinos Genidounias said: 'I want to say I'm happy, but the feelings are very mixed right now. We deserved something better. Our team showed in three games, in my opinion, that we're probably the best team here. Today, I don't know if we were that good... but we needed this more, we wanted it more. We don't have too many medals like Serbia, so it was very important for us. '
Serbia skipper Nikola Jaksic acknowledged his team put up a 'disaster' of a performance.
He said: 'You could see in the game that we felt not as ourselves, probably because we still hadn't recovered from the loss to Hungary, and Greece was better.'
'I just hope we manage to pull ourselves together, because we have the European Championships in Belgrade in five months. This is not us and if we plan to play like this there, then it's better that we don't.'
In the other classification matches, world No. 2 Croatia came from behind to beat eighth-ranked Montenegro 19-13 for fifth place, while world No. 6 Italy pipped seventh-ranked United States 9-8 for seventh place.
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