BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 16 : Italy Surfaces as Gold-Medal Winner : Water polo: Absence of Yugoslavia paves way for upset in final. U.S. loses to CIS in bronze-medal game.

Yugoslavia dominated another Olympic water polo tournament, even if its dynastic, dynamic team was nowhere near the Picornell pool for Sunday afternoon’s championship final.

Italy and Spain, both coached by former members of the Yugoslav national team, played for the 1992 gold medal and played the East European style to the hilt--tackling, elbowing, pushing, shoving and actually fighting during a brutal game that pushed both teams through more than 17 minutes of overtime.

Finally, Ferdinando Gandolfi pumped in a goal from short range, giving Italy a 9-8 upset victory and its first water polo gold medal in 32 years.

Until last month, the Yugoslav team had been the prohibitive favorite for a third consecutive gold medal, but it was banned from Barcelona just before the start of the Games in accordance to United Nations sanctions against Yugoslavia.

That threw the tournament wide open, establishing the United States, winner of the 1991 World Cup, and host Spain as favorites.

But the United States, laden with over-30 types who collaborated on the 1988 silver medal, hit the wall in the semifinals, losing to Spain on Saturday and then to the Commonwealth of Independent States in Sunday’s bronze-medal game, 8-4.

Spain had high-scoring attacker Manuel Estiarte, regarded as the finest scorer in the world, and the advantage of raucous home support, prompting Coach Dragan Matutinovic to remark after the semifinals that “Spain has the best team” and “When we win the gold medal . . . “

Italy hadn’t won a gold medal in water polo since 1960 and finished a distant sixth in the 1991 World Championships, but it did have Ratko Rudic, the gruff disciplinarian who coached Yugoslavia to its Olympic championships in 1984 and 1988.

Rudic brought a winning philosophy with him to Italy, which is, basically, to train until you drop and pummel your opponent into submission, no matter how long it might take.

Spain was braced for such tactics, with Matutinovic being another product of the Yugoslav water polo system, having played for the national team during the 1970s.

In the coaches’ chairs, it was an all-Yugo final--and in the pool, it showed.

Italy gained leads of 4-1 and 6-3, but Spain came clawing and clutching back, pulling to within 7-6 when Estiarte scored his third goal, over a triple-team, with 4:19 left in the fourth quarter.

In the final minute of regulation, Spain’s Pedro Garcia intercepted a pass near his own goal to set up one last attack. With 34 seconds remaining, Miguel Oca pump-faked twice and then skidded a shot into the right side of the net, tying the score and sending the crowd into a Catalan and Spanish flag-waving frenzy.

Overtime was next. Neither team scored in the first overtime and the second seemed headed for a similar fate before Spain’s Jordi Sans was dragged down by Mario Fiorillo in front of the Italian net, giving Spain a penalty shot with 41 seconds left.

Estiarte took the free shot, his second of the game. After hitting the left post in the third quarter, Estiarte powered this one past goaltender Francesco Attolico for an 8-7 lead, Spain’s first of the day.

It lasted all of 21 seconds.

On Italy’s next possession, Alessandro Bovo lobbed a pass to Massimiliano Ferretti, whose backhand shot went past goaltender Jesus Rollan.

The pounding on both sides had been relentless and when the players climbed out of the pool during the break, yelling and shoving ensued, prompting the chlorine equivalent of a bench-clearing brawl.

Rudic and Matutinovic bounded into the fray and began grabbing players from both teams, which initially inflamed the situation, although the coaches later insisted they were there on a peacekeeping mission.

“We did it to try to calm the players,” Rudic said. “It was a very tense match. But that’s part of the game. Nothing to get excited about.”

Matutinovic joked that “it was all just part of the show. It’s part of the fun of it.”

The players were sent back into the pool for three more three-minute overtime periods and, with the score still 8-8, a sixth.

Early in the period, Garcia bounced a shot off a goal post. Italy didn’t come close on its first two possessions, firing one shot high over the net and then turning the ball over on a bad pass, but with 32 seconds left, Ferretti found Gandolfi open in the left side of the one-meter zone and Gandolfi rifled the ball by Rollan.

Spain had a final chance to tie and maneuvered the ball inside and in front of the net to Oca. Oca spun and fired but his short-range shot hit the crossbar and bounded away with five seconds on the clock.

A few ticks later and Rudic was diving into the pool to hug his players while Spanish players collapsed into exhausted heaps on the pool deck.

“A great game,” Matutinovic called it. “Spain played very well; I think it deserves the gold medal as much as Italy. . . . This is one we will have to ponder a bit more.”

Rudic attributed the victory to stringent training.

“This is the apex, if you will, of a major endeavor,” he said. “Our players went through a considerable ordeal and suffered. We made them suffer because we wanted very tough players who could rise to the challenge in a match such as this.”

For team captain Fiorillo, who played on Italian team that placed seventh in Seoul, the reward outweighed the cost.

“If you are not prepared to suffer,” Fiorillo said, speaking of Rudic’s practices as well as the 10 periods of water polo he had just endured, “you cannot win an Olympic gold medal.”

Water Polo Medalists

GOLD: Italy

SILVER: Spain

BRONZE: CIS