Alvaro Granados Named MVP of All-Stars

World Championships: Alvaro Granados Named MVP, with Two Greek All-Stars

Alvaro Granados of champion Spain was named the MVP of the 2025 World Aquatics Championships men’s water polo tournament upon its conclusion on Wednesday.

Granados is the only Spanish player on the team, voted by media. Bronze medalist Greece is the only team with two selections, in top goalie Panagiotis Tzortzatos and Stylianos Argyropoulos.

The team includes the tournament’s to scorer, Reuel D’Souza of Canada, despite his team finishing 11th. Ninth-place Japan got Yusuke Inaba on there, while the team also includes Hungary’s Krisztian Manhercz and Dusan Mandic of Serbia.

Granados scored 21 goals at the tournament to go with 11 assists. It’s his third time on the all-star team at a World Championships, doing so in 2022 and 2024. He scored 16 goals/14 assists in Doha, just 13 at the World Championships in Fukuoka in 2023 and 22 in Budapest. He was also on the all-star team at the Paris Olympics in 2024

Four members of that All-Star team are represented a summer later – Granados, Mandic, Inaba and Manhercz, with the latter two having been on the All-Star team at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics.

Mandic returns to the all-tournament team for the first time since 2019, though he was the leading scorer and MVP of the Paris Olympics in 2024. Mandic scored 24 goal and six assists at the tournament for Serbia, which finished fourth.

Tzortzatos and Argyropoulos led Greece to an emphatic bronze medal, a day after its women’s team won gold. Tzortzatos is the second Greek goalie to win this award in the last four tournaments, joining Emmanouli Zerdevas in 2022. Argyropoulos, who was on the all-tournament team at the Tokyo Olympics, scored 14 goals to go with eight assists in Singapore.

Manhercz is on the all-star team of a third tournament in the last five summers, including the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and 2023 Worlds. He scored 14 goals and 17 assists to power Hungary’s run to silver.

D’Souza was the top scorer of the tournament despite Canada bowing out in the semifinals. He fired home 27 goals and seven assists in his first World Championships.

Inaba continued his stellar performances for the attractive brand of play that the Japanese play. He scored 24 goals and added 10 assists.

Media All-Star Team

• Panagiotis Tzortzatos, Greece (GK)
• Reuel D’Souza, Canada
• Alvaro Granados, Spain (MVP)
• Yusuke Inaba, Japan
• Dusan Mandic, Serbia
• Krisztian Manhercz, Hungary
• Stylianos Argyropoulos, Greece

Final Standings

1. Spain
2. Hungary
3. Greece
4. Serbia
5. Croatia
6. Montenegro
7. Italy
8. United States
9. Japan
10. Romania
11. Canada
12. Brazil
13. Australia
14. China
15. Singapore
16. South Africa