Believe it or not, HNK Cibalia pulled off one of the most unlikely efforts to stave off relegation.
After spending an upwards of 15 weeks in last place, and as recently as May 2 lagging behind Split by five points, the club not only ought their way above Split – finishing three points ahead – but also held off HNK Gorica with ease in the promotion/relegation playoffs.
Cibalia won 5-1 on aggregate (3-1 first leg, 2-0 second leg) and will remain in the Prva Liga for 2017/18 season.
Despite the dismal season (but valiant finish), Cibalia was still the fifth-best attended club in the league, averaging nearly 1,800 fans per match. Hajduk took the honors of best-attemded, averaging 8,340 per game while Lokokmotiva faired the worst, bringing in 644 on average per match.
Good for Cibalia. I always liked that team.
After the war, they changed their name from Dinamo Vinkovci back to Cibalia Vinkovci…something Dinamo Zagreb should have done a long time ago.
Cibalia being the original Roman name of the city, and one of the oldest (if not the oldest) town in Europe. A much better homage to its history than a terrible communist moniker.
I’m glad they’re staying in the HNL. Vinkovci has a good fanbase and a decent sized population. Hopefully they do what Osijek has been doing, and trend upward.
As much as we knock the HNL, it is getting better. Rijeka is a good team, Dinamo is decent, and Hajduk is not bad. Osijek has improved significantly, and hopefully we get a couple more teams capable of keeping up with those four. The HNL’s UEFA coefficient ranking is surprisingly high, and we are one place away from actually getting TWO Champions League spots (lol, wtf?) and players are actually getting paid (remember when there always seemed to be a strike or team walkout?).
Hopefully Rijeka gets a favourable draw and gets into the CL. I think they would get more points in one year than Dinamo has in their past several years combined. The drawback for Rijeka would be losing Matjaz Kek. If he gets CL exposure, and Rijeka does okay, some other club will snap him up.
@andrej L
LOL, you think that is impressive, the metropolitan area of rijeka has a population of 240,000 and average 4,700 per game, try again if you think that is impressive
It actually is kind of impressive if you compare the population of Rijeka, Split, and Zagreb
@ARMADA87
its actually not an impressive % sold ratio cuz the stadium only has 6k capacity
No it is not impressive “sold % by rijeka”.
Misleading figure. Stadium only holds 6,000 people.
Pretty impressive sold % by Rijeka.
Any idea what Dinamo and Rijeka averaged?