2020 Men's European Water Polo Championship

The 2020 Men's European Water Polo Championship was the 34th edition of the major European water polo tournament for national teams. It was held at the Danube Arena in Budapest, Hungary, from 14 to 26 January 2020.

Hungary claimed their 13th title by defeating Spain in the final.

Host
LEN announced the choice of Budapest as host for the competition on 9 July 2016. All the matches were played at the Danube Arena.

Qualification
Sixteen teams were allowed to the tournament. The qualification was as follows:
 * The host nation
 * The best seven teams from the 2018 European Championships not already qualified as the host nation
 * Eight teams from the qualifiers

Format
The sixteen teams were split in four groups with four teams each. The first classified team of each group directly qualified for the quarterfinals, the second and third teams played each other in cross group format to qualify for the quarterfinals.

Draw
The draw of the preliminary round's pools was held in Budapest on 22 October 2019. The teams were divided into four groups of four teams each; according to LEN rules the first batch for the draw was composed by the best four teams of the previous edition, the second batch by the teams ranked from fifth to eighth in 2018, while the third and fourth batch were composed respectively by the teams ranked first and second in the four qualification groups.

The draw resulted in the following groups:

Preliminary round
All times are local (UTC+1).

Bracket

 * 5th place bracket


 * 9th place bracket


 * 13th place bracket

Final standing

 * 1 Serbia qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics as the winner of 2019 World League
 * 2 Italy qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics as the winner of 2019 World Championships
 * 3 Spain qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics as the runners-up of 2019 World Championships
 * 4 The Netherlands qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics World qualification tournament as the host of the tournament

Top goalscorers
Source: wp2020budapest.microplustiming.com

Top goalkeepers
Source: wp2020budapest.microplustiming.com

Awards
The awards were announced on 26 January 2020.