Deni Sappe, the best player of the U16 World Championship, joins the first team after winning gold in Zagreb. In a conversation with his father Robert, he reveals what it was like to train under his command and why the season, despite four gold medals, was 'terrible'.
Croatian water polo experienced something truly special this summer. In just 37 days, it produced two generations of world champions. First, in early July, the U18 juniors won the world title in Portugal, and then their path was followed by the two-years-younger national team, who clinched the gold medal on home turf, in front of the Zagreb crowd.
Coach Sabioni's squad played a tournament to remember. Despite health issues before and during the competition, they showed character, quality, and unity when it mattered most. In the semifinals, they toppled Serbia with a goal from Lokas in a dramatic finish, and the final was no less tense, they entered the last quarter tied at 6:6.
Alongside the team gold, Croatia also took home two individual awards. Ante Domazet from Split's Jadran was named the best player of the final, while the title of the tournament's most valuable player went to Deni Sappe, a young member of Zagreb's Mladost.
After a sleepless night in the student dorm on the Sava River, where celebrations were in full swing, Deni headed home to Stupnik with his father Robert. Robert, a former water polo player and current coach, is known in the aquatic sports world by the nickname Campi and is one of the founders of VK AQUA. The family story, however, goes much further back than the pool, all the way to France.
"Yes, we are true Zagreb folks, an old city family, but our roots trace back to the dissolution of Napoleon's army. A Frenchman 'ran away', didn't want to return to France, and fell in love with a girl from Šestine. He stayed. The rest is history," Robert Sappe recounted.
As the youngest of three children, Deni had to prove himself from an early age. "Who would sit first, who would get into the car first, who would get the last slice of bread... I think his competitiveness was born with him," his father added. The sporting spirit in the family was inevitable, both Robert and his wife, Deni's mother, a former gymnast and national team member, graduated from the Faculty of Kinesiology.
The sporting journey of Deni and his older brother Tino led from gymnastics to judo, until Tino's dust allergy steered them toward swimming. "That was three years too early for Deni, but as the youngest, he, of course, followed his brother. In the end, he trained swimming for six seasons, and after four seasons, he started training water polo in parallel," Robert recalls. Fate would have it that the kids ended up in the very generation he coached. "When the two of them started water polo, they joined the generation I was leading. So for the first five seasons, I was his coach."
And what did that look like from Deni's perspective? With a laugh, he admits: "Well... it got on my nerves. He was always a strict coach, but with me and my brother, he was even stricter. I was constantly doing punishments. Five years, every day, at least 100 push-ups." His father immediately chimed in: "100 extra push-ups!" Did that discipline at least toughen him up? "Yeah, definitely," the young national team player confirms.
Amid all the sporting commitments, education doesn't suffer. "I finished the second year of the Hotel and Tourism School in Zagreb, sports class. I'm doing well, I passed with a B. I'm also trying to work on languages. German is going well, English is going well, and I still need to improve my Spanish," Deni says. Although he's still a junior by age, playing with older players isn't new to him. "I've always played with older guys. Even when my dad was the coach, I trained with boys older than me and constantly tried to catch up with them." Now, a new challenge lies ahead, after a short break, he's expected to join the training sessions of Mladost's first team.
The period behind Deni would be exhausting even for a far more experienced athlete. "It's really tough. I was in Portugal, got sick there, and before that, we had a month of preparations. Because of the U18 national team, I wasn't home for a month. I came back, had three days of training, then played in the junior cup, which we won. Then I immediately went to U16 preparations, which also lasted a month, and then we won this too," he described.
His father, somewhat unexpectedly, calls that same season 'terrible'. The culprit is its start. Deni had to undergo hernia surgery, after which he recovered for about two months. Doctors had been monitoring the issue for years, and the medical staff of the Croatian Water Polo Federation deemed the procedure necessary. What followed was a relentless schedule. "I kept saying his season was terrible, and he won one silver and four golds," Robert noted. Let's recall, Deni was also part of the U18 squad that won the world gold 37 days earlier, but he didn't play there due to illness. The young man just shrugged: "Oh, dad..." "See, it started badly with the surgery, and it ended the best way possible," Robert concluded.
After all that, a well-deserved party followed. "We stayed up late together, partied, and listened to music. We also went to the Mladost pool; everything was organized, and our parents were with us. Then we went to sleep and everyone woke up only after ten," Deni recounts. By the way, the World Championship in Zagreb brought together a record 36 men's national teams.
The shortened field and rule changes sparked numerous debates in the water polo world, but in the Sappe family, there's a consensus. "I like the new rules better. There are many more counterattacks, less swimming, more energy left, and everything moves faster," Deni claims. Robert shares his opinion: "A lot of people complained and there was quite a bit of grumbling about the changes, but I didn't see a problem. I was an attacker, and as a coach, I'm extremely attack-oriented. It turned out we gained in attractiveness. There are more sprints, more transitions, and it demands even fitter swimmers. I think the quality bar has actually been raised."
And after the pool and all the medals, Deni will spend a few days resting at home in Stupnik, by the pool, with the dogs and family. And, as he admitted, a plate of pasta. "I love carbonara or bolognese the most. I watch what I eat, but I really love pasta." Then it all starts again, preparations, Mladost's senior team, and new challenges.
