London Olympics: U.S. falls to Serbia in men’s water polo

LONDON — Going into Saturday’s group-play match against Serbia, Tony Azevedo, captain of the U.S. water polo team, must have felt a bit like a law student getting an advance peek at the bar exam.

Although the game wasn’t exactly meaningless, the Americans have already qualified for the cross-over stage, where they’re likely to meet Serbia again. That made the Americans’ 11-6 loss to the tournament favorites a valuable chance to study.

“From every loss, you learn a great deal,” Azevedo said. “Especially a loss like this.”

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And one of the things the U.S. learned, Azevedo said, is that the Serbs can be beaten.

“Look,” he said. “Serbia’s great. They’re clearly the favorites. But [if] we play our game, we win that game.”

That means not giving up six goals on counterattacks, stopping more than half of Serbia’s shots on goal and finding an answer for their physical defense — none of which the U.S. did Saturday. In fact the Serbs so smothered center Ryan Bailey that at one point he looked like a synchronized swimmer, only his legs protruding as Zivko Gocic held the rest of his body underwater.

Bailey still managed to score twice, but the Serbian attack was far more balanced, with eight players scoring, led by Vanja Udovicic, who had three goals.

“To give up 11 goals is not where we want to be,” U.S. Coach Terry Schroeder said. “Our trademark, if we’re going to have a chance to win a medal, is playing good, solid defense for four quarters.

“We’re a bit off. We’re not playing how we should be playing really, with that energy and awareness of what’s going on.”

Or maybe the team is too aware. With Serbia looming as the biggest potential roadblock to America’s first gold medal in water polo since 1904, when all three entries were from the U.S., maybe the team didn’t want to give away any secrets.

This has all happened before. Four years ago in Beijing, the U.S. lost to the Serbs in its penultimate group-play match but learned enough from the experience to throttle them in the semifinals en route to a silver medal.

And if the U.S. (3-1) wins its match with Hungary on Monday, and if Serbia (3-0-1) hands Romania its fourth consecutive loss, the next Serbia-U.S. rematch couldn’t come before the gold medal match.

“We know that Serbia is the best team here,” Schroeder said. “And beating them twice is going to be very difficult for sure.”

After Saturday, Schroeder’s team has to beat them only once.

In other matches Saturday, Montenegro beat Romania, 12-8; Croatia beat Australia, 11-6; Spain beat Greece, 11-9; Italy beat Kazakhstan, 9-6; and Hungary beat Britain, 17-6.

kevin.baxter@latimes.com