The 2013 summer waterpolo season in Malta is about to unfold.
The President’s and Sports-writers’ Cup matches will kick-start the trail this evening followed by the national league competitions next Friday.
There will be two divisions, consisting of five teams in the Premier and as many in the First Division.
Almost midway through the championship matches, which are scheduled to end on August 31, the staggered knock-out trek will get underway with the final being played in the third week of that month.
The season will also comprise Malta’s involvement in the European Championship 2014 qualification tournament bet-ween July 11 and 14.
To make it an eventful summer of waterpolo, the Euro tourna-ment will be preceded by the Comen Cup in Rome from July 4-7, a competition for the Under-17 teams.
The main attraction of the local scene is the Premier Division championship which will be played over three rounds as will the second-tier league.
The Under-17 national team’s participation in the First Division championship will be out of com-petition.
The format this summer will only comprise the round-robin encounters since the play-offs have been eliminated.
The three rounds mean that there will be 30 matches in each of the two league competitions.
Exiles, Neptunes, San Ġiljan, Sirens and Sliema will stake a claim for the top honour while Marsascala, Marsaxlokk, Otters, Ta’ Xbiex and Valletta will contest the other honour.
Neptunes’ challenge
Champions and knock-out holders Neptunes, also winners of the BOV Winter League this year, will be eyeing their fourth national title on the trot as well as the third consecutive double.
The Reds have a strong squad with a blend of thoroughbreds and young faces whose aspira-tions for yet another fruitful year are laid on solid grounds.
Long-standing captain Niki Lanzon, the classy Steve Camilleri, his brother Jordan, Michele Stellini and Clint Mercieca are their core players.
Sliema are equally confident of making 2013 a successful one.
They have engaged Timmy Sullivan and Edward Aquilina from Exiles and Neptunes respectively to replace the departing Clint Debono and Paul Privitera, who retired.
The Blues will also bank on the influential John Soler, Mark Meli, Jerome Gabarretta and others including several rising young players.
San Ġiljan are pinning their hopes on at last striking success after their improvement in recent years.
Led by left-handed scoring ace, Matthew Zammit, who pro-longed his contract last month along with experienced centre Karl Galea, and Paul Fava at the back, besides Andrea Bianchi, Matthew Pisani and the latest acquisition, Dino Zammit, the Saints can boast of other very useful units who can comple-ment the team’s strength.
Self-belief is not missing and if they hit form they can make the breakthrough in terms of honours.
Sirens may very well regard this season as an interim one considering their plans of re-building their team around seasoned campaigners David Cutajar and left-hander Jurgen Borg.
In the absence of Charlie Zammit, now with Valletta, Claudio Spiteri DeBarro and Dino Zammit, who have both joined San Ġiljan, the versatile Alex Attard leads a group of younger players.
The same can be said of Exiles, a team with a number of up-and-coming players who on their day can give opponents a good run for their spoils.
Their former goalkeeper Alan Borg Cole, now with Neptunes, has been replaced by the experienced ex-Reds custodian, Ian Bugeja, while Timmy Sulli-van’s absence will be made up for by the experienced Julian Rizzo Naudi and David Pace Lupi, complemented by the presence of centre Peter Borg and Kayne Lanzon.
In the lower division the teams will also show a few changes in their line-ups as some players have moved across the board.
Champions and knock-out holders Marsascala as well as Valletta seem to have an edge over newcomers Marsaxlokk, Otters and Ta’ Xbiex.
Above all, the contestants are hoping for a repeat of last year’s close matches, in which case we should be in for some exciting duels.
The first top league match on June 7 will be between Exiles and Neptunes preceded by the Marsaxlokk-Valletta fixture from the First Division.
Marsascala and Ta’ Xbiex will open the programme on June 8 followed by the attractive Premier clash between challengers Sliema and San Ġiljan.
Foreign players
Apart from transferred players and others on loan, the foreigners will add to the strength of the teams . As usual, each side will be able to utilise not more than two at a time.
Exiles: Vojaslav Cupic (Serbia); Romain Blary (France); Aleksander Radovic (Montenegro).
Neptunes: Aleksandar Ciric (Serbia); Tamas Molnar (Hungary).
San Ġiljan: Peter Biros (Hungary); Marco Avramovic (Serbia).
Sirens: Csaba Kiss (Hungary); Arpad Babay (Hungary).
Sliema: Gergely Kiss (Hungary); Samir Barac (Croatia).
Fixtures
Playing today
Sportswriters’ Cup – 6pm Marsascala vs Valletta.
President’s Cup – 7.15pm Neptunes vs Sliema.
Friday, June 7
First Division – 6pm Marsa-xlokk vs Valletta.
Premier Division – 7.15pm Exiles vs Neptunes.
Saturday, June 8
First Division – 6pm Marsa-scala vs Ta’ Xbiex.
Premier Division – 7.15pm Sliema vs San Ġiljan.