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Croatian Season 2009-2010 Preview

Ozren Podnar reports from Zagreb

Sad Hajduk sets a bizarre record

Hajduk Split must have broken the world record: four coaches used in only a month!

Since the Croatian season started in late July, four coaches have managed the Dalmatian club, all of them with dismal results. Ante Mise started the season, but was sacked after a shocking 0-1 home defeat to Zadar in the League.

Ivica Kalinic was brought from Sibenik as his replacement, but he had a near-heart attack in his first game on the bench, against the Slovakian team Zilina in a Europa League qualifier in Split. The experienced coach felt sick when Hajduk conceded a goal which eliminated them from Europe and went on to spend two weeks in hospital.

More coaches than points

Mise's assistant Josko Spanjic coached the team against Slaven (a 1-2 away defeat) and Inter Zapresic (2-2 at home), but he knew he was just an interim solution before Hajduk could find an established coach. The Dalmatians signed the Italian Edoardo Reja, ex-Napoli, but his first game was hardly a success: Hajduk lost 0-2 to Rijeka, the team from whom they had brought the talented Sharbini brothers just a couple of days earlier!

There has also been turmoil in Hajduk's offices. Last summer, the Whites became a Croatian joint stock company, with the new owners appointing new directors. After last season's failure to snatch any trophies, the owners replaced the whole board of directors, and the new directors are currently trying to figure out how to run the business side at the troubled club.

Their first decisions were to sell the striker Nikola Kalinic to Blackburn Rovers for a reported 7.5 million euros and the midfielder Drago Gabric to Trabzonspor of Turkey for an undisclosed sum. Creative midfielder Anas Sharbini and his brother, striker Ahmad, were brought in from Rijeka as replacements, but their debut was marred by more than a defeat against their former team.

On the eve of the Adriatic derby, as Rijeka vs Hajduk games are styled, the Sharbini brothers were talking a walk along the shore in nearby Opatija, a fashionable summer resort, but they were not alone. A dozen of Rijeka's ultras were following them to tell them what they thought of their departure to hated Hajduk.

Punched for "treason"

"Near the hotel I spotted several youths approaching us. One said to me, 'you two are garbage'. Another punched Ahmad in the face," said Anas to the Croatian press.

"Luckily, some of our teammates were near, and when the fans spotted them, they ran."

Ahmad, only lightly injured, said he had recognized his assailants.

"I know a couple of them by sight. They are Armada members."

Armada are Rijeka's ultras, the third biggest ultra group in Croatia, along with Dinamo's English-style Bad Blue Boys and Hajduk's more Italian-flavoured Torcida.

Actually, in the days leading to the match, on Rijeka's fans' forum pages, there appeared a stylized "warrant of arrest" with the faces of Ahmad, Anas and their father Jamal, with the subtitle of "traitors".

Armada's spokesman came forward to condemn the attack on the Sharbini brothers, but still added that the people in Rijeka region were incensed by the pair's transfer southwest to Split. The ultras would have their ultimate revenge as their team beat Hajduk 2-0 with two penalties from Argentina's Fernandez.

Hajduk sank to 14th, with two points (and zero wins) in five matches, already a huge 11 points behind leaders and champions Dinamo.

Jurcic turned Dinamo around

And back in late February things looked nearly perfect for the Split team. In the "eternal derby", as the Croats call the match between the big two, Hajduk easily defeated Dinamo at home 2-0, taking over on top with two points advantage. It was the second consecutive Hajduk win over the Blues from the capital, and the fact that on the last match day they would play host to their direct rivals convinced the southerners there was no way they would miss out on the title.

Two points lead plus the crucial return match at home looked very much like a decisive advantage in a country where the quality gap between the top clubs and the rest is as big as in Croatia, where Dinamo and Hajduk have historically had an almost unchallenged reign.

Still, Dinamo's top two directors, the brothers Zdravko and Zoran Mamic, hired the promising young coach Kruno Jurcic, a soccer zealot whose unfeigned enthusiasm quickly infected the whole dressing room. Jurcic, 39, a member of the Bronze generation, who won third place in the 1998 World Cup in France, motivated the previously inert squad to keep on fighting despite the poor odds.

An overly confident Hajduk saw their nine-match winning run interrupted at lowly Cibalia, who equalized with one minute to go, while Dinamo's newly found fighting spirit helped the team overturn some adverse score lines, including a 0-2 to 4-3 against Cibalia themselves.

Euphoria to depression

Perhaps shocked that their rivals had not thrown in the towel, Hajduk started looking ever more inhibited and anxious, which resulted in a couple of substandard displays, notably at Osijek and at home to Varteks, both finished in 0-1 losses.

Suddenly, with four matches to go, Hajduk found themselves four points adrift, which meant that not even a win over Dinamo on the last day of the league would put them on top, provided both teams won all their remaining games.

In a typical euphoria-to-depression turn of events, the Dalmatians also lost in Rijeka 2-1, which practically sealed yet another championship race in favour of the Blue Lions of Zagreb. On May 17th Dinamo officially celebrated the triumph with a 2-0 dismissal of Slaven Belupo, two weeks before the end of the race.

That was not the end of Hajduk's disappointments, though. The FA Cup finals was another two-legged Dinamo vs Hajduk affair and just like in 2008, the Blues won the first leg at home 3-0. Hajduk, amazingly, managed to wipe out the deficit in an inspired second half of the second leg, only to lose in the end on penalties thanks to two fantastic saves by Tomo Butina.

Not even Nikola Kalinic managed to seize the consolation prize: with a tally of 15 goals, the 21-year-old Split striker finished second, a goal behind Dinamo's Mario Mandzukic, currently touted as the next Croatian star to move to the Premiership. Mandzukic, the scorer of Croatia's only goal against England in last September's 1-4 debacle in Zagreb, is allegedly sought by Tottenham Hotspurs who may be willing to part with 15 million euros to secure this tall and speedy goal scoring machine to join up with compatriot Luka Modric at White Hart Lane.

Dinamo, it seems, are perfectly capable of winning their fifth consecutive championship even without their shining star.

Ozren Podnar

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