1979 FINA Men's Water Polo World Cup

The 1979 FINA Men's Water Polo World Cup was the first edition of the event, organised by the world's governing body in aquatics, the International Swimming Federation (FINA). The event took place in Rijeka and in the Tašmajdan Swimming Pool in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.^[1]

1979 FINA Men's Water Polo World Cup
League	FINA Water Polo World Cup
Sport	Water polo
Super Final

Participating teams were the eight best teams from the last World Championships in Berlin, West Germany (1978). The teams played a round robin to decide the first ever winner of what would be a bi-annual event until 1999.

Results Matrix

	HUN	USA	YUG	URS	FRG	ITA	ROU	BUL
Hungary		4 – 3	7 – 8	4 – 3	4 – 4	5 – 2	5 – 4	8 – 4
United States	3 – 4		4 – 6	6 – 3	4 – 2	9 – 4	8 – 4	6 – 3
Yugoslavia	8 – 7	6 – 4		1 – 5	3 – 4	7 – 6	6 – 4	7 – 2
Soviet Union	4 – 5	3 – 6	5 – 1		9 – 4	6 – 6	3 – 2	5 – 1
West Germany	4 – 4	2 – 4	4 – 3	4 – 9		5 – 4	4 – 4	6 – 3
Italy	2 – 5	4 – 9	6 – 7	6 – 6	4 – 5		8 – 8	10 – 5
Romania	4 – 5	4 – 8	4 – 6	2 – 3	4 – 4	8 – 8		3 – 3
Bulgaria	4 – 8	3 – 6	2 – 7	1 – 5	3 – 6	5 – 10	3 – 3

Final standings

	Team	Points	G	W	D	L	GF	GA	Diff
1.	Hungary	11	7	5	1	1	37	28	+9
2.	United States	10	7	5	0	2	40	26	+14
3.	Yugoslavia	10	7	5	0	2	38	32	+6
4.	Soviet Union	9	7	4	1	2	35	25	+10
5.	West Germany	8	7	3	2	2	29	31	–2
6.	Italy	4	7	1	2	4	40	45	–5
7.	Romania	3	7	0	3	4	30	38	–8
8.	Bulgaria	1	7	0	1	6	21	45	–24

Final ranking

RANK[1] TEAM  Hungary  United States  Yugoslavia 4.  Soviet Union 5.  West Germany 6.  Italy 7.  Romania 8.  Bulgaria

1979 Men's FINA World Cup winners  Hungary First title

References

1. "HistoFINA – Water polo medalists and statistics" (PDF). fina.org. FINA. September 2019. p. 25. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 6 August 2021.