2002 FINA Men's Water Polo World League

The 2002 FINA Men's Water Polo World League was the first edition of the annual event, organised by the world's governing body in aquatics, the FINA. After two preliminary rounds the Super Final was held in Patras, Greece from August 1 to August 4, 2002.

Preliminary round

• From June 28 to July 28, 2002

	Team qualifies for Super Final
	Team is eliminated from qualification

Group A

Greece qualified for the Super Final as the host country. Only the top place earned qualification, which was taken by Spain. Three points were awarded for a win, one point for a loss.

	Team	G	W	L	GF	GA	Diff	Points
1	Spain	12	10	2	134	97	+37	53
2	Italy	12	9	3	127	89	+38	49
3	Greece	12	5	7	97	115	−18	44
4	Brazil	12	0	12	71	128	−57	-7

Group B

The top two places, won by Hungary and Russia, earned qualification. Three points were awarded for a win, one point for a loss.

	Team	G	W	L	GF	GA	Diff	Points
1	Hungary	12	11	1	150	94	+56	34
2	Russia	12	7	5	102	103	−1	26
3	United States	12	4	8	109	131	−22	20
4	Croatia	12	2	10	106	139	−33	16

Super Final

• From August 1 to August 4

Group stage

The top two placed teams in the round-robin advanced to the final against each other, while the two bottom placed teams played for the bronze medal. The Russia–Hungary game was declared a 0–5 loss for both teams. Three points were awarded for a win, one point for a loss.

	Team qualifies for final
	Team plays for bronze medal

Rank	Team	G	W	L	GF	GA	Diff	Points
1	Russia	3	2	1	25	19	+6	7
2	Spain	3	2	1	30	28	+2	7
3	Hungary	3	1	2	25	19	+6	5
4	Greece	3	0	3	14	38	−24	3

Bronze medal match

• August 4, 2002

Hungary	13 – 6	Greece

Gold medal match

• August 4, 2002

Russia	10 – 8	Spain

Final ranking

Rank Team  Russia  Spain  Hungary 4  Greece 5  Italy 6  United States 7  Croatia 8  Brazil

2002 FINA Men's World League  Russia First title

Individual awards

Rank	Top scorers	Goals
1	Gabriel Hernández Paz (ESP)	34
	Tibor Benedek (HUN)
3	Tamás Molnár (HUN)	33
4	Gergely Kiss (HUN)	32
5	Alexander Yerishev (RUS)	30
6	Tony Azevedo (USA)	29
	Dmitri Stratan (RUS)

Statistics

• Total goals: 1027
• Total matches: 55
• Goals per match: 18.7
• Total of scorers: 105

References

• FINA
• Sports123