Dinamo Zagreb and Domžale have a knack of meeting in the UEFA Champion’s League 2nd qualifying round; and for the second straight year, Dinamo showed their superiority once again.
Dinamo started off hot and only needed one half of soccer to get the away result they were looking for. Ivica Vrdoljak opened up the scoring with a goal in the 11th minute. Shortly after, Brazilian born Sammir, tacked on another one in the 21′. Finishing off 1st half festivities for Dinamo, Josip Tadić stuck a fork in Domžale’s hopes of reaching the next round with a goal in the 40th minute.
With a 3-0 lead at halftime, the rest of the game was merely a conservative training exercise for Dinamo. They succeeded as the score remained the same for the rest of the match. Only a disaster in Zagreb on August 6th would prevent Dinamo from reaching the final qualifying round, which contains some of the ‘big boys’ of European club soccer: Arsenal, Liverpool, Juventus, Marseille, Barcelona and Schalke 04 are some of the teams that Dinamo can face. They were eliminated by Werder Bremen last year.
Hajduk and Slaven Belupo play the second leg of their UEFA Cup 1st qualifying round games tomorrow, July 31st. Both teams should cruise as they have 4 goal aggregate leads on their Maltese foes.