WATERPOLO: A SPORT & A HOBBY

Hello friends! Today I want to write about a sport which is also my main hobby. Its name is WATERPOLO. In my opinion, Waterpolo is a fantastic sport, based on swimming, shooting and jumping out of water. In my team there are very talented mates that could even become professional waterpolo players. Probably next year I will play for S.S. Lazio Waterpolo and I hope I’ll become an even stronger goalkeeper. They play in the National Junior League. In this league the teams are much stronger and full of  promising champions.

                                                                                            

Waterpolo is a team water sport and a contact sport. The game consists of four quarters in which the two teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into their opponent’s goal .The game is thought to have originated in Scotland in the late 19th century as a type of "water rugby". William Wilson is thought to have developed the game during a similar period. The game thus developed with the formation of the London Water Polo League and has since expanded, becoming widely popular in various places around the world, including Europe, the United States, Brazil, China, Canada and Australia.

In a water polo team, 6 players are assigned to attacking and defensive roles, while one is assigned to the goalkeeping role.

Game play broadly includes swimming with and without the ball, passing both to a player's hand and on to the water and shooting. Fouls are very common, and these affect the game play, since the victim of a minor or a major foul will have the advantage of a free throw or a 6 on 5 advantage where one player is excluded for 20 seconds and the other team gets an advantage, while the victim of a penalty foul will have the opportunity of a one-on-one shot against the opposing team's goalkeeper.

There are seven players in the water from each team at one time. There are six players that play out and one goalkeeper. In this sport there are many important roles called with the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6. 1,2 and 6 positions are offensive players. At the contrary 3,4 and 5 positions are defensive players. I would to talk you about this sport because I love Waterpolo and I am a Waterpolo’s goalkeeper. I play for S.S.D Sublacensis in Subiaco and every year we take part at the under 17 Waterpolo’s league against a lot of hard teams like S.S.Lazio, Splash Nuoto, Virtus Sport, Anagni CN and so on. I hope that this year we will win the league because the last year we arrived last. I’ve got two teammates in the other class in LET'S BLOG staff and they are Matteo  and Nicolo’. Matteo usually plays in position 5 or position 1 and Nicolo’ often plays in position 6 or position 2. They are very fast swimmers and very good Waterpolo players.

The goalkeeper – I am one of them -  is the most important role in this sport . He or she must defend the door “at all costs”. The goalkeeper has also the task of blocking shots against the goal. He or she has to be able to jump out of the water, using little more than one's core and legs, and hold the vertical position without sinking into the water, all while tracking and anticipating a shot. The goal is 2.8 m2 in face area; the goalkeeper should also be a master of fast, effective lateral movement in the water as well as lightning fast lunges out of the water to block a shot. Another key job that the goalkeeper is responsible for is guiding and informing his or her defense of imposing threats and gaps in the defense, and making helpful observations to identify a gap in the defense that the defenders may or can’t see. 

In this sport my idol is Stefano Tempesti, our national goalkeeper. He is a phenomenon and I would  like to become like him. My dream is to play in the Olympic games with Italy’s waterpolo national team.  Impossible, you say? Will is power. So, while dreaming, I also work hard and train almost every day. Practice makes perfect.

ANDREA

HAVE YOU GOT A FAVOURITE SPORT? HAVE YOU GOT A DREAM?