After a one-day rest yesterday, eight teams from the 11 participating in this year's European B Championships in Sweden will return to action today at the Eriksdalsbadet pool. The tournament got underway on Friday and comes to a close on Saturday.
With Turkey and Poland enjoying a further 24-hour rest today after topping their respective groups and earning an automatic berth in the semi-finals, Malta, Sweden, Belarus and Ukraine will be fighting it out for the remaining two slots in the last four stage this evening.
Without doubt, the Maltese players fully deserved their runner-up placing in Group A. Perhaps with a little bit of more luck, and concentration, Dirk Dowling's team could have finished first.
Against Turkey on Monday, Malta were playing on a par with their more quoted opponents only for a slight drop in form in the third session which tilted the balance significantly to our opponents' way.
The Turks eventually won 8-6 after being 5-3 down.
However, there was a tremendous response from the Maltese on Tuesday in Stockholm, a city which this year is celebrating its 750th anniversary.
Belarus were never beaten by Malta before but all that became history as Dowling's men produced an impeccable performance which silenced the critics, if ever there were any especially after the fine showings earlier this year in Manchester and Sofia, and lifted the team's morale by no small measure with a comprehensive, but surprising, 10-4 win.
The Swedes are Malta's opponents in today's quarter-final (6 p.m.). The hosts, who could consider themselves lucky to have reached this stage, beat Bulgaria 7-5 on Tuesday but had to wait until the last match from the qualifying phase - Israel vs Poland - was over to know their fate.
The Israelis were eyeing a third-place finish in Group B behind Poland and Ukraine and needed to avoid a defeat by more than a two-goal deficit against the strong Poles for whom Mariusz Szeles scored 13 times from five matches and is leading the scorers' list.
They seemed well on their way to achieve what they were out for but the eastern Europeans hit one very late goal which destroyed Israel's dreams and the Swedes erupted in joy as they lived to fight another day.
One of the referees for that tight Israel vs Poland match was Maltese official Mario Dalli.
Sweden and Israel, who drew their match 6-6 on Monday, both finished on a +3 goal average in favour but the former went through thanks to a better scoring tally - 33 to Israel's 28.
The winner of the Malta vs Sweden quarter-final will next play against Poland tomorrow. Malta's best scorers so far are Sirens' duo Paul Privitera and Jonathan Valletta with eight goals each. The former has scored in each of Malta's four matches along with Niki Lanzon and John Paris.
Today's other quarter-final will be contested by former Soviet allies Belarus and Ukraine while Israel face Belgium in the play-off for seventh place.
Denmark, Bulgaria and the lowly Finns, who conceded a 19-0 thrashing by Ukraine on Tuesday, will contest the 9-11th places between today and tomorrow.
Playing today:
9-11 place - Denmark vs Finland; 7-8 place - Belgium vs Israel; QF - Malta vs Sweden (Poland); QF - Belarus vs Ukraine (Turkey).
Champions Cup draw
The Euro club competitions draws were held yesterday by LEN.
Sliema Burger King, who will play in the Champions Cup, were drawn in the qualification round Group B along with Rapid Bucharest (Romania), Hammersmith (GBR) and Kumat Helsinki (Finland).
Matches will be played at the National Pool, Tal-Qroqq between October 18 and 20.
The top two sides of the group progress to the preliminary round.