All three of Croatia’s club teams came out with a positive result in today’s first leg of the Europa League playoffs.
Dinamo Zagreb earned an away win in Romania today thanks to two goals from Duje Cop and a stoppage-time goalazo from Paulo Machado.
The Portuguese international took a free kick from 20 yards out and curled it in the near post for Dinamo’s third goal. Three goals should be enough to hold off the Romanians at Maksimir next week, but Dinamo must not sit back and need to show up for the second match in Zagreb.
RNK Split drew to a scoreless draw against Serie A’s Torino in Dugopolje this afternoon. Split’s usual home ground, Youth Park, was passed on consideration to hold the UEFA match, and the teams played just outside of Split in Stadion Hrvatski Vitezovi. The stadium, which was completed in 2009, received high marks from UEFA’s stadium licensing inspectors and was chosen to host the match.
HNK Rijeka came out with a shutout win against Sheriff Tiraspol at Kantrida this afternoon, wining 1-0 thanks to a late-game goal from Marin Leovac.
Leovac scored the game-winner in the 85th minute. Just as important, they kept Sheriff off the scoreboard, ensuring they did did not get an away goal. Rijeka must hold their one-goal lead going into Moldova next week.
All four of Croatia’s club teams still have a chance of advancing to the group stages next week. Hajduk is only down one goal and will be playing in front of a supportive home crowd at Poljud next week while Dinamo and Rijkea will just try to hold their leads. Hajduk have already sold a reported 7,000 tickets for the match next week. Split will have the challenge of trying to win away at Torino in Italy, but still have hope of making the group stages.
Good one…but stop stalling.
Pride?
Yea, Gay Pride maybe 😉
What’s better? 28 years of pride or 64 of compromise?
28 years? Lol. Sramota.
TORCIDA te volim!!!
Anybody see the Romanian fans show solidarity with the real BBB and shit on Mamic and his crew?! Absolutely legendary.
BLUE FLAG 100 EUROS…AXERS HAMMERS CHAINS 500 EUROS…MERCANERIES 5000 EUROS…
28 YEARS OF HISTORY, HONOR AND PASSION PRICELESS…
THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CANT BUY…
FOR EVERYTHING ELSE THERES mamic CARD
Branimir Hrgota – Nesuđeni Vatreni otkrio istinu: ‘Još nisam donio odluku!’
http://is.gd/29m2hs
Happy to hear about Hrgota. Smart move by HNS management. They better start planning for the future.
Kovac please Federico Rasic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmJU9WmvCXk
Per Index:
Prema pisanju nekoliko hrvatskih medija, Hrgota se navodno odlučio za Hrvatsku, a Niko Kovač će tim povodom ovih dana razgovarati s njegovim roditeljima. Ali, Hrgota to demantira i ističe kako ga nitko iz Hrvatske nije kontaktirao.
Sam Hrgota je poručio: “Niko Kovač me nije zvao, niti sam s njim išta dogovarao, ali sam zato u kontaktu s izbornikom mlade švedske reprezentacije Hakanom Ericksonom, a uvjeren sam da je zainteresiran i Erik Hamren, izbornik A selekcije.”
LOL.
@jm
http://is.gd/IR8LPH
No, they got nothing for today
re: uefa coefficient.
It’s a long process. It’s unlikely that Croatia would get to 15th this year or next – although they are trending in the right direction.
A really good summary is here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficient#Country_coefficient
Today, Croatia earned .625 points. They got 1 point per win by Dinamo and Rijeka plus another half point for Split’s draw. That gives them 2.5 gross today and you have to divide by the 4 Croatian teams in European competition to give them .625 today.
Side note – Croatia and Kazakhstan have acquired the most points to date this year out of all countries. Mainly because Spain, England, Germany and other top countries haven’t even had clubs play yet as many go straight to playoff and group stages.
@Ziva
So little to celebrate about when it comes to our nogomet (club and country) that you have to take what you get.
I’ve seen a few references to the “komunisticki” Split…are you guys referring to their present or their past? There have been many revelations about who were the biggest communists throughout yugoslavia but I hardly doubt we can say this about them today…am I wrong?
Komunisticki Split holds off Torino 0-0 in Split
Dinamo just beat Romania’s third best team. That’s gotta be good for coefficient rankings.
Also, Hrgota just scored a brace and gave his team the road victory in their Europa clash.
RNK with the scoreless draw. Hopefully, they snake an away goal in Torino next match.
anytime you can beat a team nobody has ever heard of, its worth celebrating.
Well done Dinamo. Great ending…..about time.
Hrgota just scored the go-ahead goal
@ North
Yes, you’re right. I remember some article last year that quoted Hrgota as choosing Sweden over Cro (guess it was a BS article). Hopefully he pans out. His coach is apparently committed to playing him more regularly and consistently this season.
If it’s true that they contacted Toljan, then it’s good to hear. If you have any chance to snag a LB, you do it. I guess they don’t want to look stupid again after ignoring Drmić only to see him score 17 goals in the Bundesliga right after that snub.
That goal by Machado. Wow.
Crazy finish
@ Ante B.
Will do! Tom Byron and the Hedgehog are coming over to my house next month to watch the Malta match. The Hedgehog eats cevaps like they are going out of style.
Randy declined the invite along with T.T. Boy.
Peter North, huge fan! Please send best wishes to Randy West, Tom Byron and to the Hedgehog himself, Mr Ron Jeremy.
Happy to be wrong about Hrgota although I did hear months ago that he was leaning toward playing for the Swedes.
As for Toljan, apparently he has been contacted by the Savez. Along with Germany, he is apparently also eligible ot play for the USA. I am sure Jurgen is keeping tabs on him.
So seems like Hrgota has agreed to come to play for Croatia
http://www.rtl.hr/vijesti/sport/1296508/branimir-hrgota-odlucio-igrat-cu-za-hrvatsku/
Finally a round of applause to Kovac and crew for attempting to maximize the potential talent pool. i hope they continue to do so. jeremy toljan continues to be an interesting prospect in germany that should be contacted
COP!!!! GOALLLLLLLLL
Soudani might be playing behind Cop, so it won’t be a true 4-3-3, but they look like they’re going to focus on scoring early today.
LIneup for Dinamo is
———-Eduardo——————
Pintio – Simunovic – Simunic – Pivaric
Brozovic- Antolic – Ademi
Soudani – Cop – Wilson
probably would also help for Steua not to qualify wither.
I remember the last time Cro had two teams; if was the season after Rijeka finished in 2nd place (got robbed in the last game of the season) and then sold everyone and were left with sranje for their CL tie with Partizan.
Croatia is 19th in the UEFA coefficient rankings.
Top-15 get two teams with a chance for Champions League football. Romania is 15th right now.
I have no idea what it would take for us to leapfrog Romania, but I’m sure we would need to have Dinamo qualify regularly for CL along with at least two teams playing in Europa and actually doing something there.
@Ziva
Exactly, they would need to leapfrog the following countries:
Cyprus
Isreal
Austria
Only Croatia have all of their teams competing, so they would have a good chance to have 2 teams in CL for the 2016-17 CL season………..
Actually Dinamo kick off is 1:15pm EST
and jsut to be picky Rijeka is 3:15pm EST
Does anyone know what needs to happen for Cro to have two Champions League qualifying spots? Would all four teams need to make it to the Europa League group phase in order to increase the UEFA coefficient points.