Dinamo Zagreb made quick work of Kazakhstani champions, FC Astana, finishing 6-0 on aggregate across two legs in Champions League qualifying. Wednesday night in Astana, Dinamo won 2-0 with goals coming from Emreli and substitute Antonio Marin. It was a forgone conclusion that Dinamo would be going through before this match even kicked off after their 4-0 win in Zagreb last week.
Next up: Greek champions AEK Athens.
This will be a tricky test for Zagreb in what can be considered an unfortunate draw for the Croatian champs. Domagoj Vida will be returning to Croatia in this draw after helping Athens overtake Panathinaikos for the Greek title late last season. First leg takes place in the Greek capital August 8th with the return leg in Zagreb seven days later.
If Dinamo get past Athens, they will move to the final phase of Champions League qualifying — the playoff round. If they lose, Dinamo will enter Europa League at the playoff round stage. Either way, Dinamo is guaranteed European play this season. The best they can do is qualify for Champions League. If they completely crash out, Conference League it will be.
Great game for Osijek and Rijeka today. It’s been a good news week for our HNL teams in Europe. Next round will be more difficult for everyone, but I’m feeling optimistic. The Osijek fans really showed up today in Hungary. I could here them singing and cheering all match over the home fans. One song in particular, has histical significance against the Hungarian’s. They sang “Ustani Bane, Hrvatska te zove zove, ustani Bane Jelaćiču….”
Pretty funny since their stadium and team are Hungarian owned.
I’m really happy for both Osijek and Rijeka. Great results today and I’m really hoping they keep this going!
Next week Hajduk play PAOK ….PAOK will be without their best player and Hajduk is at home…this could be a big blessing for Hajduk!
I’m hoping all our teams keep pushing through and making some history for us!
Our clubs are killing it in Europe!
Could you imagine day when the hnl is a top 10 league
Doubt it would happen but we can have dreams
Who is Emreli, why can’t we get croatian’s to play who pledge to do their best. I sure France would love to have him.
Mahir Emreli is from Azerbaijan… He just happens to play for Dinamo Zagreb at this stage of his career.
We don’t need hacks in Ligue 1.
He is a HNL level player that is right where he belongs.
If you think about it the HNL is more advanced than the Croatian nation (at least that’s what it looks like), but the plan is to get the little nation looking like the HNL.
Even the other day I’m watching Osijek TV and the question asked was: “MISLITE LI DA ĆE SE ZBOG MASOVNOG UVOZA STRANIH RADNIKA PROMIJENITI DEMOG..”
You see if Vuskovic gets sold, a foreigner will take his spot.
If a young Croat leaves Croatia for work because you assume there is no work in Croatia, a foreigner funnily enough will be able to find a job in Croatia. It’s all part of the plan.
It really is only Croatia’s smallness, and no effort from the little Croats, that’s kept things looking Croatian, but eventually the little nation will be swallowed up. You know they had bigger fish to fry first right?
I’ll tell ya this, the children of the diaspora should really just stfu, you got no idea what’s going on in little Croatia you multicultural loving stooges, lol your whole interest in Croatia is because of football, sramite se.
“Kako pamtite tita?”
I just had a thought… If Gvardiol ends up going to Manchester City, which based on the rumours may be close to happening now. The wouldn’t it be great if Rab Leipzig would somehow pickup Vuskovic in his absence?? I know the current rumour is PSG, but it would be so much better his development to be at Leipzig based on their development of new and younger players.
I mean since Hajduk is gonna sell him anyways, it may as well be interest of both parties.
Then wouldn’t it be great if RB Leipzig…I mean
Agree RB would be best for his development. They even have the option of moving him around to RB Salzburg for a year before taking the jump to RB Leipzig
I think part of the reasoning why PSG hasn’t sealed the deal is because there hasn’t been agreement on the player side about the development plan and minutes he would need to get to develop properly.
RB would be great option.
Even Brentford FC could work. With Vuskovic playing Brentford B until ready
Good win by Dinamo, watched the match and the first goal was not scored by Emreli. It was an own goal and a good one at that, placed into the bottom left corner of the net. Emreli missed a couple of sitters in the first half.
The match against AEK next week will be tough. Greek comp is stronger than HNL and our clubs do not have a good record when coming up against Greek opponents. I reckon it is 50/50.
According to the Maxsports commentator last night the only Croatian club to eliminate a Greek club in UEFA competitions was believe it or not Slaven Belupo more than 10 years ago when they eliminated Aris Salonika.
all visiting fans are banned from the match
My only knowledge of AEK is from the time my old coach, a Serb, Dušan Bajević played and then coached them. From what I remember they were a very competitive club and from looking at Wikipedia , they won the league last season in a decent league where there are teams similar to Turkey, several decent players end up playing in these nations.
Dinamo are in a very delicate situation. They need some of their bench players to step up and take away from the pressure and minutes required to play league games and euro qualifying games. I really don’t know if AEK is supposed to be considered the “better team” or not but one thing is for sure, it’s gonna be extremely tough. AEK fans are totally nuts while Dinamo fans are not like Hajduk fans…they don’t really offer the same wild atmosphere we would hope they did!
I’m really hoping we get a decent result away from home and smash them in ZG! I always cheer for all Croatian clubs and for this challenge in definitely hoping Dinamo can get the results!