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| Founded | 1948 |
|---|---|
| League | Serie A1 |
| Based in | Savona, Italy |
| Arena | Piscina Carlo Zanelli (Capacity: 1,300) |
| Colors | |
| President | Maurizio Maricone |
| Head coach | Alberto Angelini |
| Website | rarinantes.sv.it |
Rari Nantes Savona is an aquatic sports club based in Savona, Italy, mainly known for its professional men's water polo team, which competes uninterruptedly in the Serie A1, the top division of Italian championship, since 1982; the team has been national champion for three times.
The club was founded in 1948 by Mario Caviglione with a group of other water polo enthusiasts. After several years in the amateur leagues, in 1975 the club reached Serie B (back then the second tier of Italian championship) and achieved the promotion in Serie A six years later, in the 1981 season. The first game of Savona in the Top division was a 12−9 home victory against 1980 champions Canottieri Napoli, on 27 February 1982. [1] [2]
At the time, the club used to play its home games in the near Albissola Marina and at the Genoa's Crocera swimming pool. The city of Savona built an Olympic-sized pool in 1985, the Piscina Olimpica Comunale, renamed Piscina Carlo Zanelli in 2010 in honour of the recently deceased former mayor of the town. The pool has been the home field of the club ever since, except for a 5 years of absence from 2006 to 2010 due to restructuring works. During the break, the team used to play at the Piscina di Luceto in Albisola Superiore. [1] [3]
RN Savona emerged as a top team in the early 1990s. The first trophy of the Ligurian team's history is the 1989−90 Coppa Italia; in the following season, after two second places reached in 1983 and 1990, the club won its first Italian Championship and a second consecutive domestic Cup. Savona won its second Italian title in 1992 and the third in the 2004−05 season; since then the club managed to reach two back-to-back second places in 2009−10 and 2010−11 seasons, losing on both occasions the play-offs final to Pro Recco; the third Coppa Italia dates back to the 1992−93 season. The club made its international debut in the 1983 LEN Cup Winners' Cup. In 2012 the team, defeating in the final game Spain's CN Sabadell, won the first edition of the newly renamed LEN Euro Cup, a competition that the club already won twice in 2005 and 2011 when it was still called LEN Trophy; on all three occasions Savona earned the right to contest the LEN Super Cup, but never managed to achieve the trophy, being defeated twice by Italy's fellow sides CN Posillipo and Pro Recco and once by Serbia's VK Partizan. The best performance in the major European cup came in the 1991–92 season, when Savona reached the Final but lost to Croatia's Jadran Split. [4]
Serie A1 
Coppa Italia 
LEN Euro Cup 
LEN Champions League | Season | League | Coppa Italia | International | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Rank | Post season | Stage | Rank | Cup | Stage | |
| 2010–11 | Serie A1 | 2nd | PO: Final | QR2 | — | LEN Euroleague | QR2 |
| LEN Trophy | Winner | ||||||
| 2011–12 | Serie A1 | 4th | PO: Semifinals | QR2 | — | LEN Champions League | QR2 |
| LEN Euro Cup | Winner | ||||||
| 2012–13 | Serie A1 | 6th | PO: Quarterfinals | F4: Final | 2nd | LEN Euro Cup | Semifinals |
| 2013–14 | Serie A1 | 4th | PO: Semifinals | QR2 | — | — | |
| 2014–15 | Serie A1 | 8th | PO: Quarterfinals | QR2 | — | LEN Euro Cup | Quarterfinals |
| 2015–16 | Serie A1 | 6th | F6: Quarterfinals | Not qualified | — | ||
| 2016–17 | Serie A1 | 6th | F6: Quarterfinals | F4: Semifinals | 3rd | — | |
| 2017–18 | Serie A1 | 5th | F6: Quarterfinals | QR2 | — | — | |
| 2018–19 | Serie A1 | 9th | — | QR | — | LEN Euro Cup | QR1 |
| 2019–20 | Serie A1 | Not qualified | — | ||||
PO: Play-offs; QR: Qualification round; F6: Final 6; F4: Final 4.
2019−20 season [5]
| Player | Birth Date | Pos. |
 Jacopo Missiroli | 7 February 1997 | GK |
| Nicolò Da Rold | 26 June 2002 | GK |
| Stefano Morretti | 15 January 1998 | GK |
| Andrea Grossi | 20 February 2001 | DF |
| Federico Piombo | 1 September 1998 | DF |
| Lorenzo Bianco | 18 April 1995 | DF |
| Pietro Ricci | 18 July 2002 | DF |
| Alessio Caldieri | 12 February 2002 | FP |
| Andrea Patchaliev | 31 May 2002 | FP |
| Player | Birth Date | Pos. |
| Eduardo Campopiano | 8 April 1997 | FP |
| Filippo Taramasco | 29 June 2001 | FP |
| Giorgio Boggiano | 24 April 2002 | FP |
 Guillermo Molina | 16 March 1984 | CB |
 Nebojša Vuškovič | 21 January 2000 | D |
| Valerio Rizzo | 21 September 1984 | CF |
| Ettore Novara | 20 October 1999 | CB |
| Simone Bertino | 13 March 2002 | CB |
Head coach: Alberto Angelini
Matteo Aicardi Alberto Angelini Gianni Averaimo Alessandro Bovo Arnaldo Deserti Manuel Estiarte Maurizio Felugo Massimiliano Ferretti Marco Gerini Massimo Giacoppo Alex Giorgetti 
Alexandros Gounas Mlađan Janović 
Viktor Jelenić 
Predrag Jokić 
Tamás Kásás Tamás Märcz 
Felipe Perrone 
Bogdan Rath 
Aleksandar Šapić 
Dubravko Šimenc Slobodan Soro István Udvardi 
Peter Varellas Zsolt Varga Mirko Vičević Goran Volarević In addition to the water polo team, Rari Nantes Savona also has a successful synchronised swimming section that was created in 1986 and has become a national top club since 1991 (when it reached the second place at the Italian championship). The team raised several international athletes like Giulia Lapi, multiple European medalist and part of the Italian Olympic team in Beijing 2008 and London 2012. The club won 15 synchronised swimming national overall championships. [6] [7]
Italian championships: 15 (1994, 1995, 1996, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
Tamás Kásás is a retired Hungarian water polo player.
Tamás Märcz is a Hungarian water polo player who played on the gold medal squad at the 2000 Summer Olympics. He was the head coach of Hungary men's national water polo team between 1 January 2017 and 18 July 2022.
Vladimir Vujasinović is a Serbian professional water polo head coach and former player. He currently serves as head coach of VK Novi Beograd.
Vanja Udovičić is a Serbian politician and former professional water polo player who served as minister of youth and sports from 2013 to 2022. An independent politician, he is aligned with the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
A.S.D. Pro Recco is an Italian professional water polo club from Recco, in Liguria. It currently plays in Serie A1.
Filip Filipović is a Serbian water polo player widely considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. He was a member of the Serbia men's national water polo teams that won bronze medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and gold medals in 2016 and 2020. He also held the world title in 2009 and 2015 and the European title in 2003, 2006, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018. He was named Most Valuable Player at the 2011 World Championships. He was also voted as the male water polo "World Player of the Year" in 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2021 by the FINA magazine. He played for Pro Recco in Italy and won three LEN Champions League and three LEN Super Cup with them. Currently, he plays for Novi Beograd.
Duško Pijetlović is a Serbian water polo center forward for VK Novi Beograd. He was a member of the Serbia men's national water polo teams that won Olympic gold medals in 2016 and 2020, and bronze medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. He held the world title in 2009 and 2015 and the European title in 2006, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018. Pijetlović won three consecutive Euroleague titles with three teams: in 2011 with Partizan in 2012 with Pro Recco and in 2013 with Crvena Zvezda.
Andrija Prlainović is a Serbian water polo player widely regarded as one of the greatest players ever. He was a member of the Serbia men's national water polo teams that won bronze medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and gold medals in 2016 and 2020. He also held the world title in 2009 and 2015 and the European title in 2006, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018. In 2011, he won the LEN Euroleague with VK Partizan and in 2013 with Red Star Belgrade, where he was one of the best scorers.
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Matteo Aicardi is an Italian water polo center forward. He won the world title in 2011 and two medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. In 2012 he was awarded the Gold Collar of Sporting Merit from the Italian Olympic Committee.
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The Serie A1 di pallanuoto maschile is the premier division of the Italian water polo male national championship. First held in 1912, it is currently contested by fourteen teams. Pro Recco is Serie A1's most successful club with 32 titles since 1959, followed by CN Posillipo with eleven.
Associazione Nuotatori Brescia is an Italian sports club based in Brescia, that is interested exclusively in water sports like swimming and water polo.
Rari Nantes Florentia is an Italian water polo club from Florence. From the 2011-2012 season the men's team plays in the Serie A1, the top division of the Italian league.
Rapallo Pallanuoto or simply Rapallo is a club affiliated to the Italian Swimming Federation re-founded in 2012 on the way of previous historical Rapallo Nuoto, the latter operating from 1971 to 2011. The club is active in three areas: swimming, water polo and master. The team plays its home games in the Olympic pool Municipal of San Pietro di Novella in Rapallo, near Genoa. Currently the women's water polo team participates in Serie A1; the male, after the promotion in 2013, are recorded in Serie A2.
The men's Coppa Italia is the water polo domestic Cup of Italy. The trophy is organized by FIN and reserved to Serie A1 teams. The first edition took place in 1970 and the most successful club is Pro Recco, winner of the competition for 17 times.
Francesco Di Fulvio is a water polo player from Italy. He was part of the Italian team at the 2016 Summer Olympics, where the team won the bronze medal.
The 2018–19 Serie A1 is the 100th season of the Serie A1, Italy's premier Water polo league.
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LEN Trophy and LEN Euro Cup winners | |
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| LEN Trophy |
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| LEN Euro Cup | |
| Water polo in Italy | |||||||||
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| Women |
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