Malta’s participation in the first round of the men’s European Championship 2014 qualification tournament in Odense, Denmark was the focus of an ASA meeting with the media on Thursday.
Addressing the conference the association’s president, Joe Caruana Curran, said that the national team will be engaged in these continental qualifiers in the knowledge that our ranking, possibly 14th or 15th in Europe, should provide the players much needed confidence when facing five opponents between April 4 and 8.
The countries Malta are playing against are Russia, Israel, Portugal, Bulgaria and home team Denmark.
Caruana Curran said that Malta has quite a positive continental ranking when compared to other sport and this should be an incentive to continue investing in waterpolo by laying emphasis on youths.
He thanked the clubs for their co-operation in the build-up for these qualifiers and said that this entailed hard work since, unlike other countries, our players are not in the peak competitive season.
Coach Karl Izzo spoke about his team’s preparation in the water which started in January and which included friendly matches against Sicilian team Ortigia.
As for his units, he said centre Jerome Gabarretta was declared unfit and John Soler will also be unavailable. On the positive side, Malta will include Steve Camilleri, while Matthew Zammit will also be in the team.
The captain will be Niki Lanzon.
Izzo said that Russia should be the strongest team in the group. Portugal are a much-improved side while Israel will have a strong young squad. Denmark will try to make the best of their home advantage and Bulgaria are more or less of our standard.
Izzo’s squad
Peter Borg, Alan Borg Cole, John Brownrigg, Dean Camilleri, Jordan Camilleri, Steve Camilleri, Sean Gravina, Niki Lanzon, Mark Meli, Michele Stellini, Timmy Sullivan, Dino Zammit and Matthew Zammit.
Best player awards
Steve Camilleri, of Neptunes, and Marsascala’s John Licari were each presented with the BOV Player of the Year awards for their performances in 2012.
The presentation was made on Thursday at the ASA headquarters by Peter Perotti, BOV Chief Officer Personal Banking.
Camilleri, who has won this honour three times, has been Malta’s top-scorer for five out of the last six years. He helped his team win the double last year for the second consecutive time.
The Neptunes player has been engaged by Italian top division side RN Bogliasco for the last five years.
Licari, a former national team player, was instrumental in Marsascala’s double success last season.