Tag Archives: Montenegro

Montenegro and Serbia advance to semis!!!

8 Aug

And the closer each team gets to medals, the more I dread the emotion of the game between them…

Montenegro’s Drasko Brguljan (R) and the bench celebrate a goal against Spain during their Men’s Quarterfinal water polo match during the London 2012 Olympic Games August 8, 2012. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes

(From Reuters)

By Sarah Young

Aug 8 (Reuters) – Gold-medal favourites Serbia joined their Balkan neighbours Montenegro in the semi-finals of the Olympic water polo tournament on Wednesday, after staging a decisive turnaround in the second half of their match against Australia.

Serbia, who won their group and were playing the lowest seed from the opposite pool narrowly avoided a huge upset. They trailed Australia right until the final four minutes of the match, before winning 11-8.

Montenegro beat Spain 11-9 in an earlier quarter final clash to book into the semis, giving the country a shot at winning its first Olympic medal as an independent nation.

“I was afraid,” admitted Serbia’s Filip Filipovic said of how he felt when they were behind, but he said he took confidence from the team’s ability to turn the match around.

“I think that this team showed spirit. When we play badly like in the first two quarters, we can rise up again, and we can play the most beautiful water polo.”

The team roared back to life in the second half of the match with a torrent of goals from their three top scorers, Andrija Prlainovic, Filipovic and captain Vanja Udovicic, in a display which saw Serbia’s famed defence recover to put a stop to Australia’s run.

Filip Filipovic — scored three goals to pull Serbia ahead over Australia, and into the semifinals

Serbia, who won bronze in Beijing, have spent the past four years on a roll, winning every major title on offer and are favourites to win the tournament after an unbeaten run so far.

MEDAL QUEST

Montenegro cruised through the middle periods of the game before letting a four-goal lead slip in a tense fourth quarter as Spain capitalised on their extra-player situations.

Montenegro narrowly lost out on the bronze to take fourth place in Beijing, when it competed in its first Olympics as an independent country since it separated from Serbia in 2006.

“I don’t want to be one more time fourth, I want to take a medal. It’s very important for us to take a medal,” Montenegrin captain Nikola Janovic said after the win.

The team was cheered on in the stands by Prime Minister Igor Luksic earlier on in the tournament, who spent his holiday in London watching the country’s teams compete in water polo and handball, such is his desire for a medal for Montenegro.

“We must be a little crazy. It’s the moment. It’s one moment (of) inspiration,” said Janovic when asked how his team will win their next match and guarantee a shot at the gold medal.

Nikola Janovic of Montenegro

Montenegro will play either Croatia or the U.S., who meet in a quarter final match later on Wednesday, in the semi-finals scheduled for Friday, while Serbia will meet either Hungary or Italy.

The Serbians have already overcome defending champions Hungary, looking to win a fourth consecutive Olympic gold, in the group stages.

“Doesn’t matter. Semi-final, tough game, everybody comes here to win,” Serbian coach Dejan Udovicic said when asked which team he would rather meet in the semis.

The former Yugoslav nations of Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia all play a similar style of water polo, which has to date help them dominate at this year’s Games.

For Spain, who last got a medal in the water polo in 1996 when they took home gold, the loss was a painful repeat of 2008, when they were also defeated in the quarter-finals. (Editing by Alison Williams)

 

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Montenegro wins over Hungary too — and Montenegro (vs.) Serbia: “Every game against Montenegro is very stressful and very emotional.”

2 Aug

How did I never notice what a wildly cool game Water Polo was?  I thought it was like underwater soccer or basketball where you can’t really grab or certainly not tackle an opponent.  Turns out it’s more like a kind of underwater rubgy…it’s become one of my favorite events.

Adam Steinmetz, left, of Hungary is pulled down by Antonio Petrovic of Montenegro during a preliminary men’s water polo match at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 31, 2012, in London. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Peter Biros, right, of Hungary defends against Mladan Janovic of Montenegro during a preliminary men’s water polo match at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 31, 2012, in London. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

“Hungary Facing Rare Trouble in Olympic Water Pol0“

And Serbia vs. Montenegro was painful; poetry and beauty in that they tied though, but in the end…whatever it is, it’ll be a great match, like this was:

Montenegro’s Nikola Janovic (behind) and Serbia’s Andrija Prlainovic react during their men’s preliminary round Group B water polo match at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Water Polo Arena August 2, 2012.

By Sarah Young

LONDON | Thu Aug 2, 2012 12:20pm EDT

(Reuters) – Water polo teams from Serbia and Montenegro said it remains emotionally difficult to face each other six years after the two countries separated following an 11-11 group stage draw between the two powerhouses of the sport.

“Since we separated, every time when we play against Montenegro it’s one of the most emotional games,” 25-year-old Filip Filipovic, who scored two goals for Serbia, said after the match.

“Because we were until yesterday, if I can say it, in the same room, and now we need to compete for who is going to be better, and there is very big loyalty between us. Every game against Montenegro is very stressful and very emotional.”

Both teams are medal contenders with Serbia edging Montenegro for the favorite spot, having beaten their former countrymen in the European championships final in January to take the title.

Montenegro’s captain Nikola Janovic agreed that playing Serbia caused heartache.

“We are from the same school. We know each other. It’s very difficult to play against Serbia,” he said.

Serbia failed to hold on to a two-goal lead in the final quarter, with Montenegro, cheered on by their Prime Minister Igor Luksic, catching up in the last two minutes of the grueling tussle.

Filipovic praised a stunning five-goal haul by Serbia’s Andrija Prlainovic.

“We don’t need to spend words. He’s one of the best players all the time,” he said.

Serbia, who took bronze in Beijing in 2008, are chasing their first Olympic gold after four years of winning every other big water polo title.

An Olympic medal for Montenegro would be the country’s first in any discipline.

Serbia now top Group B, the so-called “group of death” as it features the best four teams from Beijing while Montenegro are third.

There are two groups of six teams in men’s water polo with the top four in each advancing to the knockout stages.

 

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Balkan Trilogy

5 Jul

Olympic year or not, London has always had it all over us in terms of theater — in variety, quality, daring and in its still central role in the city’s life:

“Perhaps the most logistically ambitious part of the festival was Globe to Globe, in which leaders of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater spent nearly two years lining up 37 international theater companies to mount one of the plays in their native languages at the Globe over six weeks this spring. The shows included a new “Balkan trilogy” with theaters from Serbia, Albania and Macedonia each performing one of the three parts of “Henry VI” — not coincidentally a play about civil war — as well as productions of “The Comedy of Errors” from the Afghan troupe Roy-e-Sabs and “The Merchant of Venice” from the Habima theater company of Israel (which drew protesters waving Palestinian flags).”

Give the guys a break, dudes, they’re doing “The Merchant of Venice.”

And Afghans doing “The Comedy of Errors” is too perfect.

London, 1666 (click)

 

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Corn Bread, Hog Maw and Chitterlin’

9 Apr

I’ve been reading so much about the Balkans lately (I’m on my third consecutive read of Milovan Djilas’ Land Without Justice) that I’ve developed an intense craving for cornbread — serious, hard, Balkan cornbread, what they call “bobota” in Epiros or “proja” in Serbia and Montenegro; I don’t know if they do so anywhere else.  I also miss a kind of cornbread burek they used to make – “bliatsaria” they used to call it – which was two layers of cornbread with a burek filling in between: spinach, leeks, feta, maybe eggs.  Corn was the poor man’s wheat; it yields far greater amounts of grain per acre than wheat does and will grow almost anywhere, like in my mother’s village, where after two feet you hit bedrock.

Does anybody have a recipe?  Somebody from the Epiros-Albania-Montenegro-Sandjak axis, or someone of Pontio-Karadenizli background is most likely to know.  The sweet, cake-like recipes  that people have posted in this recent New York Times article definitely won’t produce the dry, nearly unswallowable texture I’m looking for.

The next day, when it became truly rock hard (kids would use it in slingshots my mom used to say), they used to break it up into chunks and dump it into buttermilk (xynogalo, ayran, lassi) to make it edible.  I know that traditional cornbread in the American South used to be like that too because once in a conversation about food with a fifty-ish Black woman here in New York, I mentioned the buttermilk practice and she doubled over laughing, then smiled and snorted with that great look of feigned embarrassment and homey joy that Black Americans make when they’re talking about something – a guilty pleasure usually – that’s too down-home or too ghetto to own up to.  She couldn’t believe that people half way round the world used to eat stale cornbread mush with buttermilk the way they used to.

And tell the folks in the comments that lard is good for you and that, yes, it’s time to talk about chitterlings.  Easter’s coming up, innit?

Here’s Joe Cuba’s 1966 boogaloo classic “Bang Bang” which I used to think was called “Cornbread, Hog Maw and Chitterlins” because those are the only real lyrics.  What’s boogaloo?  “…the first Nuyorican music”: Boogaloo

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