In 1908, a group of students from Split, who learned water polo in Prague, demonstrated the game at Bacvice, a public beach in Split, while the first full water polo game was played in the Split harbor in 1921. A group of students from Zagreb, who studied in Vienna, founded a water polo section in the Croatian Athletic and Sports Club in 1921.
A water polo section of Victoria Croatian Sports Club in Susak was founded the same year. In 1922, a water polo and navigation sports club called Baluni (later Jadran) was founded in Split and in 1924 the Jug Sports Club in Dubrovnik and the Karlovac Sports Association were formed.
Water polo became popular in Rijeka, Split and Dubrovnik and other cities. Tournaments were organized, and the most successful players between the two world wars were the athletes from Jug. Croatian water polo fully asserted itself after World War II. Since 1961, Croatia has been organizing winter water polo events as well. The most successful teams are Jadran form Split and Mladost from Zagreb. Mladost from Zagreb won the European Champions Cup six times (in 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1990 and 1991), the Cup Winners' Cup once in 1975 and the European super-finals twice, in 1975 and 1990. Jadran from Split won the European Champions Cup in 1992 and in 1993. Croatia has 29 water polo clubs.
On the first European championship, which took place 1926. in Budapest, Hungary national team won the gold medal, Sweden took silver and Germany bronze medal. Most successful country on European championships is Hungary (12 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze medals), followed by USSR (5 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze medals), Yugoslavia (1 gold, 8 silver, 4 bronze medals), Germany (2 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze medals), Italy (3 gold, 1 silver, 5 bronze medals). The fact that first Yugoslav national team that competed on European championship 1947. in Monte Carlo was consisted of all Croatian players tells us how water polo was developed and popular in Croatia. Following two European championships tell us the same story: Yugoslav national team was in fact Croatian national team. After independency Croatian national team has great success European championships: five times among four best teams, out of six championships. Read more...
Croatian Water Polo Federation