Water polo at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament


The men's tournament of water polo at the 2020 Summer Olympics at Tokyo, Japan, were scheduled to begin on 26 July and end on 9 August 2020. Games will be held at the Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center. It will be the 27th official appearance of the tournament, which was not held in 1896 and was a demonstration sport in 1904 but otherwise has been held at every Olympics.
On 24 March 2020, the Olympics were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Qualification

Schedule

The competition begins on Sunday and matches are held every other day. At each match time, two matches are played simultaneously except for the bronze medal final and gold medal final.
GGroup stage¼Quarter-finals½Semi-finalsBBronze medal matchFFinal

Competition format

The twelve teams are seeded into two groups for a preliminary round. The teams in each group play a round-robin. The top 4 teams in each group advance to the knockout round while the 5th and 6th place teams are eliminated. The 5th place teams are ranked 9 and 10 based on win-loss record, then goal average; the 6th place teams are ranked 11 and 12 in the same way. The knockout round begins with quarterfinals. Quarterfinal winners advance to the semifinals, while quarterfinal losers play in the 5th–8th place classification semifinals. The two semifinal winners play in the gold medal game. The two semifinal losers play in the bronze medal game. The 5th–8th place classification semifinal winners and losers play in the 5th/6th and 7th/8th place classification games, respectively.

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Knockout stage

Bracket


;Fifth place bracket