Croatian Season 2004-2005 Review:
The incredible has happened: Miroslav Blazevic, a Dinamo icon, joins Hajduk Split

Ozren Podnar reports from Zagreb

Club season over in Croatia

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The strangest soccer season ever in Croatia finished in the most extraordinary fashion, with arguably the weakest Hajduk Split in the past 15 years coming out as 2004/05 champions by beating the team whose coach had already agreed to a transfer to Hajduk for the next season.

Hajduk edged the modest but brave Inter Zapresic by two points after beating Varteks 6-0, while Inter drew 3-3 away to Cup-winners Rijeka. The tiny Inter, from a western suburb of Zagreb, had to win and hope for Hajduk to be held in order to snatch their first-ever league title, but it was not meant to be as the Dalmatians thrashed their usual victims, Varteks, with a surprising ease.

The 2004/05 season will be forever remembered by the deplorable crisis of the traditionally biggest team, Dinamo Zagreb, who have not even qualified for Europe for the first time since Croatia's independence. It will also be remembered by the lowest percentage of points for a title winning team (a mere 58.33 pct) and above all for the amazing decision of Miroslav "Ciro" Blazevic to coach Hajduk Split.

Blazevic, identified with Hajduk's archrival Dinamo Zagreb as much as Matt Busby was indentified with Manchester United or Franz Beckenbauer with Bayern Munich, incredibly broke his unwritten allegiance to the troubled Zagreb club in order to take over the now-fashionable Hajduk.

The former national team coach worked at Dinamo in four different spells, the last of which ended in 2003 after a tempestuous split with the club's power broker, vicepresident Zdravko Mamic. In the meantime, Blazevic coached Mura of Slovenia and Varteks Varazdin, but remained a member of Dinamo's assembly up until a few days before the end of the season.

Never say never, Mr. President

Although he indicated as early as last autumn that he would like to finish his illustrious coaching career at Hajduk, few people took his words seriously and Hajduk's president Branko Grgic even claimed that 70-year-old Blazevic would never coach Hajduk as long as he was in power at the Split club.

Then in January Hajduk picked up Dinamo's unsettled young star Niko Kranjcar (national team coach Zlatko's son) sending the fans into rapture, and Blazevic suddenly realized that Split would be a place to be for the next few seasons.

In the last two months of the campaign it grew increasingly clear that Ciro Nazionale, as both the fans and the media call him, would in fact replace Hajduk's interim coach Igor Stimac at the end of the season, which Split's ultras welcomed about as warmly as Manchester United followers did Malcolm Glazer's takeover. The hard-line Hajduk ultras even issued a communique stating they would not stand for Blazevic's arrival at their club, due to his historical links with their hated Zagreb rivals.

Still, the day before the deciding game at Poljud Stadium, where Blazevic's Varteks were supposed to put up a bitter fight since Inter's title challenge depended on the outcome of their game, the controversial coach met with Hajduk's leaders and closed a deal to take over the team at the end of the championship.

"I have never and will never throw a game. I foresee Hajduk will have a hard time beating us, we are a damn tough team," said the coach before the last match, but as it turned out, Hajduk had their easiest game of the whole campaign.

A disoriented Varteks found themselves 4-0 down after 22 minutes, as Blazevic relished his last big transfer more than concentrating on the events on the field themselves.

Blazevic: humiliated but happy

"This 6-0 thrashing was the biggest humiliation of my career, they really beat the crap out of us, but on the other hand the transfer to Hajduk has been the biggest deal of my career," said Blazevic, while his detractors in the north fumed against the controversial finish.

"We knew that Varteks had no chance at Poljud," lamented Inter's secretary Branko Laljak in country's leading daily Vecernji list. Dinamo's vice president Mamic declared that "Inter are clearly the moral winners," while the secretary of the Professional Clubs' Association Nedjeljko Herjavec described the run-in to the title as "a circus".

Blazevic was undaunted by the media buzz. "I am excited (by coming to Hajduk) like afew times before in my life. I realize that there is a tremendous burden of expectations upon my back, but they make me all the more motivated to succeed. This is the deal of my lifetime and these are not empty words."

Curiously, throughout the season Hajduk achieved 25% of their 16 wins and scored 27% of their 58 goals against Varteks. It is no doubt extraordinary that Hajduk clinched all of their last three titles (in 2001, 2004 and 2005) on the last day of the season by beating the team from Varazdin.

But, in this strange season, Hajduk themselves were beaten four times out of four by anot-so-impressive NK Zagreb, the first time the Dalmatians ever lost so many games to a single rival in one league season. On the other hand, Hajduk defeated a splendid Inter three times and drew once, which effectively won them their sixth Croatian title.

Under Blazevic, they will attempt an unprecedented feat in their 94 year long history: win three titles in the row, something they never achieved in the former Yugoslavia or independent Croatia.

Ozren Podnar

2004 | 2005

Trophy winners in Croatia since independence

Season	League	FA Cup	SuperCup
1992	Hajduk	Inker	Hajduk
1992-93	Dinamo	Hajduk	Hajduk
1993-94	Hajduk	Dinamo	Hajduk
1994-95	Dinamo	Hajduk	Hajduk
1995-96	Dinamo	Dinamo	Hajduk
1996-97	Dinamo	Dinamo	Hajduk
1997-98	Dinamo	Dinamo	Hajduk
1998-99	Dinamo	Osijek	Hajduk
1999-2000	Dinamo	Hajduk	Hajduk
2000-01	Hajduk	Dinamo	Hajduk
2001-02	Zagreb	Dinamo	Dinamo
2002-03	Dinamo	Hajduk	Dinamo
2004-04	Hajduk	Dinamo	Hajduk
2004-05	Hajduk	Rijeka