2002 FINA Men's Water Polo World Cup

The 2002 FINA Men's Water Polo World Cup was the twelfth edition of the event, organised by the world's governing body in aquatics, the International Swimming Federation (FINA). The event took place in the Tašmajdan Swimming Pool in Belgrade, Yugoslavia from August 20 to August 25, 2002. Participating teams were the eight best teams from the last World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan (2001).

The FINA Cup in Belgrade decided which teams qualified directly to the 2003 World Aquatics Championships in Barcelona, Spain from July 13 to July 27, 2003. Russia and Hungary, as well as the host Spain, already qualified based on the results from the 2002 FINA Men's Water Polo World League (June 28 – August 4, 2002).

Teams

Group A  Hungary  Russia  United States  Yugoslavia

Group B  Croatia  Greece  Italy  Spain

Squads

 Croatia

Teo Đogaš Nikola Franković Hrvoje Herceg Igor Hinic Hrvoje Koljanin

Aljoša Kunač Ivan Milaković Dalibor Percinic Danijel Premuš Tomislav Primorac

Ratko Štritof Goren Volarević Tihomil Vranješ Head Coach: Veselin Đuho

 Greece

Christos Afroudakis Theodoris Chatzitheodoru Nikolaos Deligiannis Theodoros Kalakonas Konstantinos Loudis

Dimitrios Mazis Georgios Reppas Stefanos Santa Anastasios Schizas Argyrios Theodoropoulos

Ioannis Thomakos Dimitrios Tsiklos Antonios Vlontakis Head Coach: Machalos Panagiotis

 Italy

Alberto Angelini Fabio Bencivenga Leonardo Binchi Fabrizio Buonocore Alessandro Calcaterra

Roberto Calcaterra Maurizio Felugo Francesco Ferrari Goran Fiorentini Federico Mistrangelo

Francesco Postiglione Bogdan Rath Stefano Tempesti Head Coach: Alessandro Campagna

 Hungary

Attila Bárány Tibor Benedek Péter Biros Rajmund Fodor Tamás Kásás

Gergely Katonás Gergely Kiss Zoltán Kovács Csaba Kiss Tamás Molnár

Barnabás Steinmetz Zoltán Szécsi Attila Vári Head Coach: Dénes Kemény

 Russia

Revaz Chomahidze Denis Denisov Aleksandr Fyodorov Serguei Garbouzov Dmitry Gorshkov

Nikolay Kozlov Nikolay Maximov Andrei Reketchinski Dmitri Stratan Yuri Yatsev

Alexander Yerishev Marat Zakirov Irek Zinnourov Head Coach: Aleksandr Kabanov

 United States

Tony Azevedo Ryan Bailey Layne Beaubien Larry Felix Peter Hudnut

Dan Klatt Genai Kerr Merrill Moses Jeff Powers Chris Segesman

Jesse Smith Wolf Wigo Adam Wright Head Coach: Ratko Rudić

 Yugoslavia

Aleksandar Ćirić Danilo Ikodinović Nikola Janović Viktor Jelenić Nikola Kuljača

Aleksandar Šapić Dejan Savić Denis Šefik Petar Trbojević Vanja Udovičić

Vladimir Vujasinović Nenad Vukanić Boris Zloković Head Coach: Nenad Manojlović

Preliminary round

Group A

	Team	Points	G	W	D	L	GF	GA	Diff
1.	Yugoslavia	4	3	2	0	1	26	19	+7
2.	Russia	4	3	2	0	1	21	21	0
3.	Hungary	4	3	2	0	1	24	19	+5
4.	United States	0	3	0	0	3	14	26	–12

• August 20, 2002

Russia	7 – 6	Hungary	2-2 1-1 0-2 4-1
United States	4 – 9	Yugoslavia	0-2 0-2 2-3 2-2

• August 21, 2002

United States	5 – 9	Hungary	1-1 1-2 2-2 1-4
Russia	6 – 10	Yugoslavia	1-4 3-3 2-3 0-0

• August 22, 2002

United States	5 – 8	Russia	0-2 0-3 2-1 3-2
Yugoslavia	7 – 9	Hungary	2-3 1-2 2-2 2-2

Group B

	Team	Points	G	W	D	L	GF	GA	Diff
1.	Italy	5	3	2	1	0	19	16	+3
2.	Greece	3	3	0	3	0	18	18	0
3.	Spain	3	3	1	1	1	17	16	+1
4.	Croatia	1	3	0	1	2	16	20	–4

• August 20, 2002

Croatia	5 – 6	Italy	2-1 1-2 2-1 0-2
Greece	5 – 5	Spain	1-2 3-1 1-1 0-1

• August 21, 2002

Croatia	4 – 7	Spain	1-3 1-2 2-1 0-1
Greece	6 – 6	Italy	1-1 1-1 1-1 3-3

• August 22, 2002

Italy	7 – 5	Spain	1-1 2-1 2-1 2-2
Croatia	7 – 7	Greece	2-1 2-1 1-3 2-2

Quarterfinals

• August 23, 2002

Hungary	10 – 7	Greece	4-1 2-3 1-2 3-1
Russia	6 – 5	Spain	0-0 1-2 3-2 2-1

Semifinals

• August 24, 2002

Yugoslavia	5 – 7	Hungary	2-2 1-3 1-1 1-1
Italy	4 – 5	Russia	1-1 1-0 2-1 0-3

Finals

• August 23, 2002 — Seventh place

United States	12 – 10	Croatia	4-4 4-3 2-1 2-2

• August 24, 2002 — Fifth place

Greece	4 – 3	Spain	2-1 1-2 1-0 0-0

• August 25, 2002 — Third place

Yugoslavia	6 – 4	Italy	2-0 1-1 1-2 2-1

• August 25, 2002 — First place

Hungary	9 – 10	Russia	3-2 3-2 2-4 1-2

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Final ranking

RANK TEAM  Russia  Hungary  Yugoslavia 4.  Italy 5.  Greece 6.  Spain 7.  United States 8.  Croatia

2002 Men's FINA World Cup Winners  Russia Third title

• Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece and the United States qualified for the 2003 World Aquatics Championships. Russia and Hungary, as well as the host Spain, already qualified.

Individual awards

• Most Valuable Player
  •  Tamás Kásás (HUN)

• Best Goalkeeper
  •  Nikolai Maximov (RUS)

• Topscorer
  •  Tamás Kásás (HUN) — 13 goals