HNK Hajduk will be entering the second round of the UEFA Europa League this week against Romanian side CSMS Iasi. The first match will take place on Thursday, July 14 at 2 pm EST in Romania.
Iasi features former Croatian U20 and NK Zadar player Ante Saric, who until moving last season, made nearly 100 appearances for Zadar.
Hajduk is expected to advance against the Romanian club, which finished the 2015/16 Liga 1 season in seventh place.
NK Lokomotiva easily advanced from the first qualifying round with a 7-2 aggregate victory over Andorran side UE Santa Coloma. This was their biggest victory in European play in club history.
The advancement to the second round pairs them up with Finland’s runners up, Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS).
HNK Rijeka await its fate in the third qualifying round. Rijeka is a seeded team. All Croatian clubs are expected to advance in their respective groups.
Tuesday is the opening day for Dinamo’s Champion’s League run. They will face Macedonian champions FK Vardar. The first match will take place in Skopje while the return match will be featured at Maksimir on Tuesday, July 19. Both matches begin at 2:45 EST.
@Metros-Croatia – Many on this site agree with you. However that said, a few Serb trolls that hold on to their mental midget ways, but that is fine.
What scares me, is that I hear a Serb is trying to corrupt minds of young diaspora Croatians by claiming to be a role model. Plz do not let this man near any child, at best, he will turn them into self hating internet trolls.
Francuzi nogometni savez komentirala nakon utakmice:
“MAMIC EST COUPABLE!!!”
The mental midget label remains. We voted on it last night. Looks at the performances we have put in during must win, knock out games…..not good. At some point the talent we have on the field has to come through when it matters. Having a career second division coach only hurts as we try to get rid of the mental midget label.
And stop blaming the refs,…..you sound silly. As I have said before, if you are going to turn a blind eye to the referee situation in cro, then you can’t bitch about poor ref decisions in UEFA. Do the bigger and more powerful countries have ano advantage, yes. But you have to overcome it. Many of us in the diaspora are born to poorly educated parents and we grew up speaking English as a second langauge……that didn’t stop us from making excuses. Instead, many of us in the diaspora excelled and are now role models for the next generation.
Ask yourselfor this……are you ready to be a role model for the next generation of diaspora hrvati?
After seeing Portugal take the final, any talk that Croatia choked (or reference to this mental midget nonsense) should be put to rest. Portugal is a quality team that has been a regular quarter-finalist (at minimum) at major tournaments since 2004. They hit on the right tactics and luck ran their way this time. By their own words, the only team they were truly scared by in this run was Croatia.
As for Turkey and Iceland using the same tactics against us in qualifying, good luck to them. Portugal was so effective playing that style because they have the quality to hurt you coming back. Mark my words, Croatia doesn’t drop any points to either the Turks or the Vikings.
@Razor Razbijac – Great point. They definitely will. Turkey kind of did the other week (remember when they straight crushed Modric at beginning of the game/tournament? The dopey ref set the tone for us, by not giving them a yellow.). Iceland’s whole game is parking, hitting, & counter.
What helps me sleep at night, is that none of them are big name teams. Refs & Uefa might be a bit less biased against us.
At least Portugal winning goes some distance to shut up the critics about the brackets. It was all laid out perfectly for Spain and England… The organizers just didn’t plan on Croatia and Wales topping their groups.
What keeps me up at night is the thought that Iceland, turkey, and Ukraine might steal a page from Portugal’s playbook and try and rough us up a bit, play cynical–since it worked so well for Portugal against us.
@iggy – you play the cards you are dealt. Not every team has a bunch of face cards like Croatia, Germany, & France. Portugal had 8-9 suited, so their coach limped in, and hit the straight flush. I can’t detract.
Mixed feelings about Por winning the Euro; on the one hand it makes us sorta look better considering we nearly beat them but on the other they were defensive and ugly and played anti-football.
A number of years ago in AFL “flooding” became a defensive way to play and one team did it and got results. It was disgusting to watch but it worked so then everyone started doing it and AFL become a shitfest.
Portugal have showed playing well has little impact on winning in this tourney so i hope this doesnt mean soccer follows AFL and all the countries start playing defensive anti-football cos it works. It kills the spectacle and makes the game boring as my ballsac.
Much like how our goaltending suddenly improved, I think our coaching will improve as well.
Maybe it’s the old communist system that kept our players & coaches in a silo, separating us from the rest of Europe that prevented them from being exposed to and coaching various systems. I dunno.
But a lot of our coaches who have left the “regija” are finding success in other countries and really taking notice.
Vladimir Petkovic was some scrub player in Sarajevo, and now look at him (17 years coaching Switzerland and Italy and now he’s doing great as the Swiss head coach).
We all watched Bilic grow as a coach. Unfortunately, we were the stepping stone for his career, but he’s now looking like a serious coaching talent (who will likely return coaching for us 10-15 years down the road).
Ivan Juric and Nenad Bjelica had shockingly good results for both Crotone and Austria Vienna respectively, and Prosinecki is showing some promise as well. It’s a good sign having unexpected success early in their short careers.
We also have a lot of random coaches here and there (Barisic at Rapid Vienna, Damir Buric recently at Hajduk, Igor Tudor recently at PAOK) who are all decent coaches with foreign training backgrounds.
Even guys like Ivan Leko and Niko Kovac are coaching now in Belgium and Germany, so you never know. But I’m still holding my breath for the Stimac comeback though. 🙂
Too bad Boro Primorac will never leave Wenger and coach Cro. But the dude has been gone so long, he’s pretty much a dijaspora Croat now.
True, not every player that plays at the top level becomes a good coach. But it does help.
I think some of them will become good coaches (most won’t). And it’s the ones that become good that we’re interested in coaching repka. Besides, all we need is one good man for the job ya know!
Playing at a high level doesn’t always translate to being able to coach at a high level.
@ Peter North and Ziva Istina
We have the talent in terms of players, but the quality of our coaching doesn’t reflect that.
I predict in the future Croatia will have some good quality coaches. Because this current generation of players have had the opportunity to play in top teams, under top coaches. So they learned a thing or two ya know.
Now when the Kunas dry up from their playing careers, they’re gonna look for new sources of income, and they’ll throw their hand in at coaching. Passing on whatever knowledge they gained playing for top clubs, from the world’s best coaches.
Man…just like I said, the troll Serbs are now embarassed that they called us Mental Midgets. They are admitting that it is not embarassing to lose to the eventual European Champions. They are also saying, “they can’t believe we had the mental strength to dominate & almost overcome the HORRENDOUS refereeing, and STILL almost beat the European champions.”
We should not be proud of our tournament, but at least we lost to the champions.
Quit saying Portugal isn’t a good team, they won even w/o the 2nd best player in the world for almost two halves (2nd half & 30 mins extra time). The calls were also going France’s way.
Congrats to Portugal. This new format is going to diminish the prestige of the tournament. The first two weeks are effectively useless and Portugal proved that.
Mamic je kriv za sve! I’m boycotting football all together
Portugal bought into the team system for once and followed Santos tactical setup, something that country has not done in the past under previous coaches.
They have plenty of talent on that squad so I don’t think there is a large gap between them and other football power countries.
Santos proving to be one of the best National Team coaches out there. Unreal how far he can take his teams despite the talent gap.
Good for Portugal. I was rooting for them. They finally get a trophy. Long overdue and well deserved.
P.S. Mamić je kriv! 😉
Yes give credit to the pork chops. They beat Africa (France) and deserved to be champions of Europe.
Portugal did the job and kept their cool despite loosing ronaldo. Took down france in their home. And none of their players did anything stupid. Give them credit and dont assume we could have done that.
@ziva
ahhh come on humor me here…croatie did have the better chances in that 120′ period….
Croatia what could’ve been? Nothin . You create your chances. We had very few. Didn’t deserve to beat Portugal. France at least had more chances. Only thing they can regret is not finishing their chances. We can regret having mental midgets and coach qualified to coach second division sides.
Well i was entertained by that match.
man portugal u kidding me……Croatia what could’ve been…..
So I guess Cacic isn’t the only coach that couldn’t figure out Portugal!!!
Meant, Saric, damn iPhone.
This EURO final has been less than impressive. If Potugal wins it, will they be embarrassed and give back the trophy because they played a dull brand of soccer for a good part of the tournament?
France almost with the late winner, just off the post, great bit of skill by Gignac.
Good on our boys for qualifying for the Olympics. I honestly didn’t think they had it in then after losing the opening game. Saic was simply tremendous.
Fuck, people actually follow MMA? Wow.
Lesnar got an exemption from USADA (anti-doping) agency for his fight with Mark Hunt. The guy has been a doper for years, even in his college days, when testing was virtually non-existent. While in the WWE, he is doping religiously, builds mass, then comes to MMA to ground & pound.
He is one of the reason I stopped being a fan of MMA. Just too much doping. He better not take the belt from a resl fighter, Stipe Miocic.
Lesnar was UFC champion like 6 years ago wasnt he? Im sure he was, i remember watching it.. anyway he just goes donkey kong on ppl’s arse; that’s his only tactic, it’s shithouse tbh
Oh cool we did it to get in the Olympics ! I didnt know at all so that’s good to hear. And Ziva, your positive comments above took me by surprise ! Good job mate 😀
Poglavnik
If Wer gonna bring up his past than you should also mention he was a champion wrestler
More importantly, how many other WWE stars could win a UFC title?
While you were gone I redefined the term Jocksniffer to be people like Joachim Low (literal jocksniffing)
can we get some basketball coverage, we just qualified for olympics.
Not true……I’m afraid that would be some of you jocksniffers who go nuts when you see an athlete or celebrity and decide to disturb them and ask for a photo. Can’t think of anything more fan boyish than that…….well, outside of wearing another man’s name on your back.
@Brkic – i hear Ziva bought a drill so he can make s peephole in the wall surrounding the team’s hotel pool.
Hopefully our basketball players don’t catch the Ziva virus while they’re in Brazil…
I think we can all agree Mental Midgetcy is when Men athletes refuse to go to the Olympics “in fear of Zika.”
The only reason these athletes are declining is b/c they are subject to wada doping tests, which guys like Lebron might not pass (if his ped masking techniques are not working on the say he gets tested.)
Very cool.
A little bit of both, but when you look back last year and how we played at Eurobasket nobody would have saw us winning this. Remember we looked like shit against Czech Republic last year…….so, this is a big success.
We don’t have a PG and if we get anything from our centers that is considered good (Tomic said no more to the repka), so who knows what we will be like in Brazil.
But, this is a success. Qualifying is huge because the kids like Saric and Grobar Hezonja will benefit from it. Hopefully, the kids coming get up like Shoes Bender, Zizic and Zubac develop….could be a real nice future.
Beating Greece, then
Beating Italy in Italy
I would say a great little run, with mental strength to spare.
Is this actually a great win or just us doing what we’re supposed to? Don’t we have NBA level players and prospects? Just seems like us not underachieving to me.
Either way looking forward to watching us in Rio.
Planinic had a great game and their transition game was on point today. Both teams were abysmal at the beginning of the game. Either way, Croatia got it done when it mattered in Italy. Well deserved. Can’t wait to watch this team in the Olympics.
Ukic is poor
Easy……this was not a great Italy team. Very decent side, but not great. You actually have to win big games to be great.
Can’t say enough good things about Saric and his play today. He reminds me of a bigger, faster and stronger version of Bodiroga (some of you may remember him). Does a lot of things on the court besides score that can impact the game.
Croatia to the Olympics.
Italy with a great team and a splendid supportive home crowd couldn’t beat Croatia.
Great victory for the Croatian basketball. Only last year we were eliminated by Czech Republic in the Euro’s 1/16 final.
Saric is a killer!
That cant be ziva posting above. Im just glad we dont have to here about mental midgetry being up late and blowing a lead.
Fucken great win. Saric and Bogdanovic carried them late. Simon got us there and they took over. Awesome, awesome win.
Olympics here we come.
What a win for the bball team
@hrvat – it would be the following year that Croatia gets the 2nd spot.
The allocations are already set for 2017-18. And yes, they have a good chance this year and even better next as many countries ahead of them are defending lots of points that are falling off the table.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient
If Croatia does well in the Europa League and Champions league they will get 2 CL spots next year and 5 of the 10 teams in the league will be playing in Europe. It’s important Hajduk comes through since Romania is one spot ahead of Croatia for the 2 CL spot. Every win matters
Although I am with Iggy, I appreciate the write-up. It is what the site is about.
Sigh.. dont want to watch any soccer till the WC qualies tbh