A Dinamo Zagreb masterclass in UEFA Champions League qualifying!
Dinamo defeat Qarabag 3-0 in the 1st leg of the FINAL round of UCL qualifiers! The Croatian champions are 90 minutes away from another Champions League campaign! Marko Pjaca opened the scoring followed by two Sandro Kulenović goals off the bench. Martin Baturina recorded another assist and fantastic performance in the midfield. Nevistić made 4 HUGE saves to keep the clean sheet. But don’t let the scoreline fool you. Qarabag could and should have scored 2-3 goals this match but just couldn’t figure out their final touch in the box. Barring a complete collapse in Azerbaijan next week, Dinamo are headed to the new 36-club Champions League “league path” where eight matches would be played amongst Europe’s most elite clubs.
Real Modrić lives !!
https://www.90min.com/real-madrid-jude-bellingham-injury-possible-return-date-revealed
Rijeka draw 1 – 1 at home to Olimpija. They started well with Marco Pasalic and Ivanovic playing well. Ivanovic scored a super goal to give Rijeka the lead around the 30 min mark. They had a couple of chances at the start of the second half to extend the lead but after that they ran out of puff and Olimpija was the better team for the last 30 min or so. Olimpija equalised from the penalty spot when Gabriel Vidovic clumsily fouled inside the box.
Return leg in a week’s time and you would have to say advantage Olimpija.
Gabriel Rukavina not Vidovic
Yes my mistake.
Sigur is a blessing in disguise
Ange said he bought Solanke bc he’s been thru adversity and fought his way back up to a PL team and showed he is a PL goalscorer (after not being good enough at Liverpool and Chelsea)
Sigur has faced some minor adversity in his first year – expecting things to come easy and him being handed on a plater a spot on the National Team
We now know what he’s made of and his true colours
If he wasn’t willing to persevere and show grit to keep fighting to reach his goal (on the National team) – how do u think he would act on the field ?
Not the personality you need to fight on the pitch when the going gets tough
Blessing in disguise
Definitely
Seems like he doesn’t care for Croatia or Canada.
He’s just a career focused guy who will take the path of least resistance to gain international exposure to advance his career. Whoever is offering, he’s taking.
It’s true that most footballers’ careers are heavily dependent on this. It may be the smart move for him, but it’s not going to be beneficial to a National Team to have a guy who will constantly focus on his career first over the country.
Canadians seem to be notorious for this, especially when you consider how many talented NBA players they’ve had who have opted to pass on playing for the National Team after a long NBA season or when contract negotiations are coming up. They should have achieved far more considering they have the most amount of NBA talent behind the US.
Lack of patriotism I guess.
Reports in the media that Roko Simic is going to England and join Sunderland in the championship ? Maybe not ideal, but worth a go and better than sitting on the bench at RB Salzburg. Championship is a very physical league and may suit Simic who is also a robust, physical type player.
I think it would be a good move from him
Similar to Crnac to Norwich
Championship is a good league and if they perform there – they will have options to move on – the league is HEAVILY scouted by PL teams to pick out the best players and bring them up
For reference, Spurs have a young forward prospects Jamie Donley – he did the entire pre-season tour w/ Spurs – but was loaned out to League One Leyton Orient
Meaning if it’s good enough for Spurs to place their good prospects in League One – to ensure they have adequate minutes to develop – it is good enough for Simic and Crnac to play in the Championship
Hopefully they both do well (assuming the Simic deal gets over the line)
Rijeka v Olimpija today, play off for group stage of Conference League.
For those with access to MaxTV 1 – coverage starts at 20:00 hrs Croatian time.
Šugava Rijeko
Suck a fat one.
@MART
https://croatiansports.com/what-is-dalic-doing/#comments/510853
Hej MART, do you reckon this is a less serious injury than a cruciate ligament tear, or pretty much the same sh*t? Basically I’m concerned Stanisic doesn’t come back the same player…
And who should be our 3rd choice RB? Surely it wasn’t Sigur?? 😮 I’m fine with using Jakic or one of the CBs as a temporary solution.
Collateral ligament injury (MCL) is nowhere as serious injury as ACL.
It all depends on how bad the tear is ? from what I have read best case scenario he starts playing in 6- 8 weeks. However, if its more severe and there are complications he could be out for 3 months or more? NL matches are in Sep, Oct and Nov and I do not think that we will see Stanisic play in any of them ? If all goes well possibly November?
For ACL it takes 12 months and many players coming back from ACL are never the same. For MCL I’m not sure ? but any knee surgery is serious enough, we can just hope that when Stanisic returns it won’t be a hinderance.
With Juranovic and now Stanisic injured not sure what Dalic will do ?
He might be forced into formation change and play 3 – 5 – 2 which will be risky against Portugal first up. He might do what Otto Baric did 20 odd or so years ago and play with 5 CB’s ?
U never know w/ knee injuries
Depends on luck, genes, and players ability/willingness to recover (both physically but also psychologically), etc etc
As reference, Calafiori tore ALL the ligaments in his knee & meniscus and was told he would never play football again – he’s now at Arsenal
Interesting move by Sigur. Haven’t watched him play, so don’t know much about him. At 20yrs old he is not guaranteed playing time for the Canadian National Team so why make the change now? At least Sosa was 24yrs old and playing in a top 5 league before he tried to switch. There has to be more to this story and i’m sure bonehead Dalic and his special needs sidekick Olic were involved.
I really doubt Dalic had any negative part in this. The kid wasn’t good enough or perhaps not ready for a euro call up and he has been injured all preseason. Stanisic is now injured and sigur could have had a chance at right back. But he isn’t fit. Seems like Canada sold him on dreams of maple syrup! More importantly he is still unproven. He had a solid season last year but really needs to do it this season to cement his status as a top pro. Best wishes to him if he chose Canada but Hrvatska moves forward!!!!
Sigur confirming he will represent canada now
Gundogan back to Man City
There goes Kovacic playing time cut in half
Great win for Dinamo!
Hopefully they can tighten up the defence…we were really lucky not to concede. Does anyone think that Kulenović deserves a callup to the NT? If he keeps up his form for Dinamo, he might be worth a try?
I have written a few times on here that Kulenovic has improved a lot, late bloomer you could say. He is in good form and has been scoring goals regularly for Dinamo for some time now. I’m sure that if he continues like this, he will get a call from Dalic.
Dinamo fans love Kulenovic, because he has had offers to head overseas but has decided to stay and prove himself at Dinamo. He is getting more and more playing time and looks impressive whenever he come on.
Thanks for the info. I don’t watch the HNL games often, but from recent highlights, and this past game, he seems to have a Mandzukic goalscoring vibe.
Rumours of Sandro Kulenović to represent Bosnia
Isn’t he cap-tied with us? He played with U23 v Qatar when he was 22 and a few months shy of 23.
I read that BiH were watching him and interested in getting him to switch, but it doesn’t say he would be interested. He was born and raised in ZG, but his father (Almin) is from Bosna.
When you look at the overall depth of players, Sigur knew he had no shot of playing in WC ‘26 and really thereafter. There have been “generational” talents who never made a mark with our senior team. There is no need for people to be upset for a kid trying to do the best for his career and make his dreams come true. He’ll now get a crack to play with the Canadian MNT and if he plays well, a shot at a real transfer. I’m more perplexed why we valued him over prospects in our own system….
Crnac to Norwich ?
Norwich are a proper club – were in PL 3 yrs ago – were in Championship semi-finals last yr (teams 3 thru 6) and got smoked by Leeds
But they are always on the cusp of returning to the PL and have been ping ponging up and down
Imagine he joins and they get back to PL and he helps them achieve that ?
If Crnac can’t score goals in Championship – than he wasn’t going to be good enough for us anyways – hell we called up Matanovic as standby for Euro 2024
Would be a fantastic move – also if it ends up being 11 euro fee – that’s a 11x on the 1 euro fee Slaven Belupo got 12 months ago (hopefully there was a sell-on clause in the deal ?)
See the deal is actually done
It’s a great move
Let’s also stop with the victim mentality “England k*lls our players !”
If they good enough – they make it – see Modric at Spurs
zašto ste ljuti na siguru? mali nije hrvat. baš kao i većina ovdje. nitko ne govori niti piše na hrvatskom.
hrvatska je za hrvate. i ljudi iz Nepala…haha haha haha
Nije ni Josip Šimunić Hrvat niti igrači iz Bosne Hercegovinu ako će mo tako misliti.
Komunisticin nacin…jugovici mrze dijaspora
Does Sigur really think he will start this over Alastair Johnston at RB ?
Lol
AJ is the starting RB for Celtic over last 2 years
No coach in the world is going to choose some bit player from hajduk over a regular starter for Celtic
Moron alert
But how does he compare to some legendary ballyhooed guy called Jarrod Bowen who we keep hearing about from a single source?
Jarrod Bowen is now the Captain of West Ham
Read Anonymous and learn
x.com/NWLondonHammer/status/1826184202183758201
Peće me kurac za West Ham.
Man crushing on some English dude don’t have too much to do with Croatian Sports.
little sigur…what a snowflake…was never going to make our nt…so now goes crying back to mommy and canada…
Remember those hockey morons….and that women’s coach Herdmann screeching “F Croatia”…then we hammered them…
Sigur can have fun trying to play ahead of the crnci that Canada has…all Jamacian sprinters…..no technical ability but can sprint…lol…
Herdman is soon going to be under a huge microscope for the drone shit. I hate that smug greasy prick. Sigur can go, jebi ga. Hajduk randoms are not world beaters. (Speaking from someone whose dad is a Hajduk diehard.)
Your dad needs to come over to the winning side.
Even Perisic didn’t want to deal with that joke of a club….lol.
I’d go easy on the kid. Made his decision at what, 19 years old, when most of us were deciding whether to drink tata’s rakija or a bottle of Olde English before heading out on a Saturday night. He sees that his path is much rockier than originally thought and decided to represent where he has more of a chance to play in the long term. And who knows, once he is fully fit and playing well, with a bit of luck he may make the Canada squad for the next World Cup. Many were criticizing Borna Sosa for trying to rep with Germany before that was shut down. Every athlete naturally wants to compete at the highest level but it looks like that was a step a little too high for him and this way he still has a shot at playing international soccer. Good luck to him.
Great win. One more game to go, don’t blow this. This will be worth 25 million euros just to qualify, not to mention then 4 home games which might include the world’s best team, Real Madrid and Luka…and Kova and Gvardiol and City.
PS what happened to all those Hajduk fans claiming they are the best? lolololololololol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plavi plavi!
Roko Simic not on U21 call up / standby
What has Dario done here ?
P off the entire HNS so they completely over-look his son
Crazy
Roko is sitting on the bench and not playing. Needs to leave RB Salzburg ASAP and find another club. The forwards that Olic has called up Ivanovic, Ljubicic and Crnac are playing and in the case of Ivanovic scoring goals.
In regards to Sigur again, the guy has been injured and has not played a lot recently. Olic did not call him up for the U21 and I reckon that pi…d him off hence his decision to change his allegiance to Canada.
Forgot Sigur – he wasn’t good enough anyways (from what I watched)
We have Peter Sucic as our next gen DM – Sigur leaving – just tells us how good P Sucic is – i.e. Sigur doesn’t think he is better / can surpass him
Some synergies in having 2 cousins on the field same time (if they are close) – no different than Niko and Robert Kovac playing together
Also – Noa Mikic 17 called up to U21 – he’s a true RB – and was stand-out in U17 game vs. Denmark in May where he scored a beauty goal (look it up) – so at RB – we have Stanisic until Mikic (or whoever takes over) – Sigur not good enough to displace Stanisic for RB either
If Sigur wants to join a team – that is so crap – that they need to fly drones over their opponents training – to give them an “edge” – so be it
We should focus more on the 2 Bayern prospects called up to U21
x.com/iMiaSanMia_GER/status/1826145205445112170
U know Germany is/will be chomping at the bit to get them to change allegiance
Good news is Vidovic Gram profile picture is his dad and him (in a Croatia jersey)
Also some foreign-born names on U21 standby-list e.g. Pesch
Sigur switching to Canada is no great loss. The guy is full of BS, he has realised that his chances of playing for our senior team were minimal.
He reckons that he has a better chance of representing Canada at the senior level and that is the only reason for his decision. He figures with the next WC being played in Canada/Mexico/USA he has a chance of playing at a WC.
I have seen him play a lot for Hajduk and our U21 and he has not excelled.
Scored one good goal for Hajduk from memory against Varazdin?
Don’t know much about the strength/depth of Canadian soccer but I reckon Sigur might struggle to make the cut even with the Canadian senior team.
I wish him the best, but I simply can’t relate.
I could never under any circumstance play for another country.
You don’t need to worry about it…..no other country would want you.
Not sure about that MART. I bet he’s thinking hrv is in a free fall and Can is on the upswing. Can’t blame him for that.
Our transition period has gone awry due to the fact some members of the A team don’t know when to slide which sends everything back. Good for this sigur guy
I don’t think it’s possible for Lovro Zvonarek to switch.
He only has a Cro passport and is already capped for our U21s.
I think Vidović still can play for Germany, but his family are from Zepce in BiH so there’s zero chance he’ll ever play for anyone other than Croatia.
Big congrats to Dinamo
I love hajduk, always hopeful and I get the rivalry
But born and raised in Canada I just want to see Croatian success of course particularly in football as it’s a massive part of our identity
Dinamo holding it down for Croatia once again
Mamic may be a snake but guy made enough good shrewd football moves and yes maybe his motives were shady but there is no doubt he helped majorly to develop guys
We have proved to have the talent in genetics. No one can argue otherwise
Just look at our success vs Serbia’s for this sport
Talent must be developed
Other wise it’s just another person potentially on the street
So full props to Dinamo for working hard to put in quality performances and now will get paid and as the HNL will always be, a developer league
And now with even more money it can breed more success
I just don’t know with hajduk
It’s astonishing at the talent they have let go
Baturina obviously being the glaring one now
Maybe they didn’t see what mamic saw. Maybe they needed the cash
Maybe it was funneled out by corrupting by management
Who knows. Money and power can do funny stuff to people
But this is not a shade at hajduk post. I want to see them come back to some glory
It’s not only good for Dalmacija but the whole country and abroad
But to celebrate the new kids
Baturina seemed to have a flatter year last one but hit the gate running this year
Him and sucic are really showing they have potential to become above average national guys and maybe more
Kova maybe really can take over when luka leaves as the veteran in the middle?
So tho, we need a DM a RB
And obviously wings
Taking auditions
It does look like one of these kids will eventually break out as an above average striker for us
But we need some speedy wingers
Anyone? I know rebic wasn’t the all star stud we had hoped for but he definitely went down hill in club after the repka blowout
He could have been still serviceable
Let that be a lesson to the young kids, talent is nothing without the right attitude
And talent is nothing without the right environment
Disappointed in the young kid especially being from where I was born and raised in Canada
He could have waited another year but also i understand his position. Hard to know much at that age but for sure wanting to get going with his career
Canada is maybe not a joke of soccer country these days but a joke of a country
It’s a relic of it’s once proud self
Anyways good luck to the kid
Ironically like others have said with some injuries this could maybe have been a time coming where he could have been capped
Niko Sigur opting to play for Canada has me sooo salty. There is a lot to say about dalic’s tactics not being the best and holding onto older guys for too long but to be fair there like 5 other guys I’d have at the September matches before sigur. Good riddance have fun playing for shit ass Canada
It’s fine. Let him go.
Dalić not at fault for this. Sigur is obviously not a true Croat and was just using us to try and advance his career.
Sounds like the American Croat Pulisic. Big on hype, no go on field. US performance as hosts for the COPA was dogshit. Pulisic complains to refs more than Ronaldo. Don’t know much about Sigur but I’m siguran he made the wrong choice to play for Kanada.
Who cares
Yet to hear one positive review about him from those that follow Hajduk
We have Peter Sucic for next generation DM – with Jakic as the bridge
And Stanisic can be RB until Noa Mikic (17 – just called up to U21) is ready to take over
Also good to see another one of the other nose-pickers leave (Mandzukic)
Maybe Dalic will surprise us with a new (foreign) assistant coach ?
Gattuso can join the staff once he’s fired next month haha
Hehehe
Gattuso acts like the “typical” Croatian dad
Don’t see why everyone getting so exited
Think he would be a good yin to Dalic’s yang
Match made in heaven really
Sigur chooses to play for Canada. A slap in the face to the country that developed him as a player.
I see some people blaming Dalic, but I couldn’t disagree more. Sigur is 20 and still (visibly) lacks experience. Being on standby callup is more than fair in my opinion. If he thinks he deserves consistent minutes with the national team at this point in his career he’s delusional
I’ve been a vocal critic of Dalić, but he is not at fault for this.
It’s still very debatable if Sigur is even NT caliber and already being called up on the pretpoziv list this year was very good for him and signaled that he had a future on the NT.
I’m very surprised he chose Canada after coming to Croatia to develop.
At the same time, I’m glad he’s gone. He’s obviously not a patriotic and proud Croat, and he’s giving Croatian Canadians a bad name.
We need proud diaspora Croats (like Igor Matanović and Luka Sučić) who turn down other NTs for ours.
Interesting game today. It could have gone either way but Dinamo really did put away their chances while Qarabag couldn’t find the net. I was nervous going into this game…lots of chatter and discussions prior to the game stating Qarabag would easily win…they were very decent for a club thats got a small budget and 12 National Team players.
Qarabag smashed Ludogrets (Bulgarian champs) with a 9-3 aggregate, they also beat our very own Slaven Belupo 1-0 and Viktoria Plzen from the Czech league.
as per Dinamo’s performance today…they played like men. sure, there were some kiks here and there but they did play to win and had several shots, several corners, lots of duels won and missed on at least 4 great chances….1 cross bar and a post by Baturina. He was all over the place and in a good mood. at times it looked like he was playing at the Croatian picnic grounds…making moves…jukin and jivin!
overall I can say I was happy with the result but I’m also cautious for the return leg. Qarabag has quality and anything can happen with an inspired team and lots of money at stake.
Hero of the game is Baturina while Kulenovic deserves high praise as well. For those of you following Petar Sucic…he was very good today and so was Misic. in fact, Misic was brilliant at times and I can never understand why he’s not in the National team discussion…although I see things on tv and not at the ground level.
I’m not 100% if this is true but I heard that Zdravko Mamic bought Baturina from Hajduk at 13 years old for $500,000 Euro. if thats true then that says a lot about Mamic and Hajduk.
Great result for Dinamo which should be enough to make the group stages of the Champions League ? Qarabag looked impressive with their quick passing and were the better team apart from the last 20 minutes or so when they opened up chasing an equaliser and Dinamo caught them on the counter with two killer goals from Kulenovic. Baturina really should have made it 4 – 0 at the death when he hit the post from close range.
In the return leg Qarabag will need to attack and this will leave space for Dinamo to counterattack again and hopefully score a goal or two.
What worries me is the defence, there was some poor defending tonight and Qarabag could have easily scored 5 goals if it was not for Nevistic in goal and some glaring misses.
It is true that Baturina switched from Hajduk to Dinamo as a junior, not sure about the money involved.
Petar Sučić assist on that first goal was great.
Wishing Stanisic a speedy recovery. Once again I’m worried about his career with Bayern… just when things were going well for him (finally the first choice RB), this unfortunate injury had to strike.
Been a real downer of a day…
– Stanisic’s knee injury
– Gundogan’s imminent return to City
– Merino still not moving to Arsenal
– Rumors of Crnac to Norwich
Only bright spot is Dinamo’s big 1st leg win over Qarabag with great performances from Baturina and Kulenovic (I guess P. Sucic also had a solid outing). Props to our young guns!
Not a big fan of Crnac to Norwich either. England seems to kill careers more often than it makes them
Werder Bremen would’ve been much better for Crnac to move, at least it’s a first division in a country instead of it’s second division.
Starting with the 2024–25 season, the distribution of the prize money is as follows.
Play-off round: €4,290,000
Base fee for league phase: €18,620,000
League phase victory: €2,100,000
League phase draw: €700,000
League phase top 8: €2,000,000
League phase ranked 9 through 16: €1,000,000
Knockout round play-offs: €1,000,000
Round of 16: €11,000,000
Quarter-finals: €12,500,000
Semi-finals: €15,000,000
Runners-up: €18,500,000
Champions: €25,000,000