Through the front door, the Spanish women’s team will play their fourth World Cup semifinal on Wednesday, brilliantly beating Hungary 9-12 in the quarterfinals. The team coached by Miki Oca will face Australia for a place in the final (11:30 am, on Teledeporte), who defeated Greece (8-9).

The big surprise was the elimination of the very powerful United States against Italy 7-8, which will prevent the defending champions from linking their fifth straight gold… and Spain may have more options if they beat Australia.

In fact, the US team is the true black beast of the Spanish: they have defeated them in the last four editions of the World Cup (2015 in the quarterfinals, 2017 in the final, 2019 in the final and 2022 in the quarterfinals).

The first semifinal awaits a duel of height: the Netherlands (who defeated Canada, 17-10), against Italy for a place in the final on Friday.

The star of the Spanish team was the CN Sabadell player Judith Forca, who scored 5 of the 12 goals with her prodigious left foot. She was seconded by the young Paula Camus (2) and Elena Ruiz (2)

Spain began to get the victory on track with a 1-3 start with goals from Forca, Elena Ruiz and Bea Ortiz. Hungary closed the gap before the horn with the Garda buoy (2-3).

In the second quarter, the Spanish team reached a maximum income of 3 goals with Judith Forca’s 2-5, which she herself maintained with her third goal at 3-6. Garda closed the gap again (4-6) before the break.

After the intermission, again Judith Forca returned the income of 3 goals (4-7), and the Catalan extended the maximum advantage to 4 with the 5-9 that left the victory sentenced with 3m20s to go to close the third quarter.

However, Hungary showed why they are always a rocky and feared team, they delivered a 3-1 run that allowed them to get closer to 8-10 with 7m21s to go.

There was no panic. With Martina Terré in goal (4 saves in 13 shots, 31%) and goals from Anni Espar and Maica García (8-12) scared away the Magyar threat.

Spain was already in the World Cup semifinals, the fourth they will play. In the previous three, he always won a medal: gold in Barcelona 2013, silver in Budapest 2017 and silver in Gwangju 2019. It will be the fifth semifinal in the last six major championships held since 2018 (he only failed in the previous World Cup in Budapest 2022).

Regarding Australia, Miki Oca highlighted that “it is a very physically powerful team, with very strong and very fast players, with very good individual technique and good swimming; so we will have to work a lot in defense, with a lot of movement and collaboration to be able to stop that power one on one”, he commented in statements provided by the RFEN.

Hungary: Hungarian; Szilagi (-), Valvi (-), Gurisatti (1), Parkes (-), Keszthelyi (3, 2p), Rybanska (-); Mahieu (-), Mate (-), Leimeter (1), Hadju (-) and Garda (4.2p).

Spain: Terré; Anni Espar (1), Nona Pérez (-), Paula Crespí (-), Elena Ruiz (2), Judith Forca (5), Maica García (1); Bea Ortiz (1), Pili Peña (-), Paula Camus (2) and Paula Leitón (-).

Partials: 2-3, 2-3, 3-4, 2-2.