Ante and Matt talk current status of Dinamo Zagreb, Champions League quarterfinals and Ante Rebić returning to the national team.
If Rebić publicly apologized to Dalić and his Croatian teammates, would you want him back on the squad?
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If you have ever been in any dressing room in any team sport , you often come across “Rebic” types. It’s about them. They might be great talents, can produce but are really a downer for the team. I couldn’t care if Rebic had to kneel on nails for a day for penance, he’s that type and the HNS doesn’t need his kind. God willing he grows old and sees the light and gives God thanks for the little time he played for “nasi” and does lots of soul searching for what might have been. In a few years , we’ll be saying , ” who is Rebic and whatever happened to him”
Regarding the HNL, I admit it’s very difficult to watch games that don’t involve Dinamo or Hajduk.
Very slow paced and not the most technical. The stadiums are always empty, so if the folks who live nearby don’t care enough to attend, why should I watch on TV from the US?
I call bullshit on your comment.
It’s not a great league but the top teams can beat clubs from any country in hat are in the bottom half …including teams from England, Spain, Germany.
“Very slow paced and not the most technical”?
Do you watch Bundesliga, Seria A, La Liga? Have you seen their bottom half teams play? You’re just blabbering.
There are probably more technical players in HNL per capita than in Germany, Italy, Holland…the difference is there’s no money at the clubs because Croatia is tiny compared to the rest.
In England they play an extremely high paced game and most English players are fit, strong and fast but lack technical skills and always have.
My opinion is based on watching all of the domestic leagues and coaching and officiating at various levels. HNL is even below MLS at this point.
I can put aside my patriotism and still be realistic.
I will give HNL this….at least most of the players are Croatian and we’re developing players in our own backyard. The same can’t be said for most of the other domestic leagues. This is probably the largest reason I still stay tuned, not because of the quality of play.
I don’t think I’m speaking from patriotism, I believe I’m speaking from a stance of interest and knowledge.
I grew up playing in the 80’s when the game wasn’t very developed in Canada or the US but back in Croatia and the crappy Yugoslavia, soccer was very developed and the type of training and overall knowledge from coaches, training staff, team doctors…was far better the. In North America. The stadium’s for most clubs were primitive, the training facilities also primitive BUT the quality of even the most basic style of player was excellent and still is!
Fast forward 40 years and the difference we might see is that not much has changed in Croatia with regards to stadiums and training facilities while we look at clubs in Canada and the US and they usually have state of the art facilities for everything. The stadiums have wifi, the attendance is pretty great across the board in the MLS, the advertising is pretty…but if you give me the choice between watching a game in an outskirt town of ZG vs going to watch the average club in the US that has giant stadiums and lots of glamour, I’ll still go watch the HNL…why? Because the culture of the game in Croatia is far richer than the culture of the game in the MLS. They years and years of experience and passed down club history and approach to the game in Croatia far outweighs anything you can ever give me from the MLS.
If you’ve ever started anything in your life st the grass roots level and then accomplished something, you learn to appreciate everything because you learned from phenomenal people that taught you…it won’t matter if you have the best technology or the best looking surrounding, you’ll know that you’ve learned and experienced from a history of fantastic experience and no stadium with wifi will make a difference for you…no sexy uniforms will attract you to something different then you’ve learned from…nothing else matters except for the small qualities you are able to identify because you learned it from a trusted and quality culture of experienced people.
I don’t watch much MLS because I don’t feel I’m connected to clubs that are greatly advertised, that employ players that are entering retirement stages of their careers and that have zero historical culture for the sport. I’d rather watch Lokomotiva tie Osijek…at least I know those clubs are playing kids that come from a very tough environment to make it and the clubs developing those kids aren’t making them pay 10’s of thousands of dollars to advance. It’s the opposite in Croatia…the better you are, the more the better clubs want you and your family doesn’t go broke trying to give you a fair chance …it’s the “culture” of the game that makes a difference.
Listen to Slavonac. He knows what he is talking about.
alright, I listened to the first 16 minutes of this podcast and I’ll ask a few questions and then add some comments.
Kvartuc, you said you don’t watch the HNL except for maybe Hajduk vs Dinamo because you said the league is shit. Really, its not as shitty if you watch how close several of the games are…even teams like Istra, Sibenik, Slaven Belupo cause lots of problems for all of the top 4 in the league…most games are somewhat entertaining, not sure how you can comment on the league being shit if you aren’t watching the games.
Kvartuc, since 2002, Italy have had 2 winners on a regular basis, primarily Juve and Inter…and Milan has snuck in there a couple of times. In the Bundesliga, Bayern have won the league 17 times since 2000, in La Liga the winners are primarily Barca and Real Madrid, in France its been PSG and prior to them it was Lyon….you get where I’m going with this right?
If you want parity in the HNL, just so Hajduk, Rijeka, Osijek and whoever else get the chance to win the league, how do you expect them to compete in Europe overall and how will our overall coefficient look like once those teams bow out of European competitions in the very early stages of qualifying? Remember, Hajduk got bounced out of Europa league very early so the only team holding our coefficient was Dinamo…right? I think you should be wanting other teams in the league to raise their level and not keep repeating how shitty the league is because there’s no parity…thats a loser mentality!
Now, having Lebo on your podcast is good because he offers a little balance from the usual pro Hajduk stance on this site. Its good to see someone rationally explain how Barisic, who has been a LONG TIME SUPPORTER of Mamic has turned against him…all because of the political status in Croatia. This is an important piece he brought up because Mamic ALWAYS put the health of the youth program first while we all know that every other boss in Croatian football has failed to do this. When you interviewed Romeo Jozak, he was hesitant to say he was friends or liked Mamic but he clearly stated that Mamic gave him absolutely everything he needed for the youth program while kids from Hajduk leave their program or they end up giving up because of the corruption there…in matters like this, who would you rather have as a boss?
Some idiots (I won’t mention names) have an eternal hate for Dinamo and Mamic because they are LOSERS that can’t handle losing instead of putting the onus on their own club, that have extremely good talent, but they can’t manage a sock drawer!
In order for Croatia to be successful in this sport, we need teams that can compete in Europe, we need teams that fully develop their kids and not desperately sell them at 16-17 years old. I remember when Halilovic and especially Coric were spreading their dislike of how Dinamo were mistreating them on social media because they wanted to be sold so they could begin their careers at big clubs elsewhere…how did that work out for them?
One last thing! If you hate a club for being more successful than you, what does that say about you? How do you go (Torcidasi) against your own captain, your own country, try to ruin games by painting swastika’s on the field, throwing flares to get FIFA to penalize you, put up signs that say “sve izgubili dabogda” and then announce that you’re returning to support the National team and expect people to welcome you back? Only the most ridiculous, self serving losers would do something like this. I don’t care what team you support, you never put your club in front of your country!
Thanks Slavonac. I was speaking to some old heads on Easter, and they were all saying losing Mamic is a net loss for the system. They know the new regime is going to be a net loss.
Even though Gorica is at the bottom of the table, I think the growth of the city will cause their team to naturally grow. For me, within the next decade Gorica will become the gem of the HNL in terms of developing youth.
We shall see though.
I usually watch at least 2 HNL games every weekend and the league was probably better last season but there sure are a lot of decent players and games to watch.
I’m not interested in watching Slaven Belupo vs. Sibenik on a weekly basis. Sorry.
For 2 reasons:
1. Atmosphere (give be a packed Poljud atmosphere for these matches and you can change my mind)
2. No access to Croatian internationals. All the Croatian internationals and top prospects play for Dinamo/Hajduk. And if they don’t, they will get bought by one of them very quickly.
Me being me, I need to keep my eyes open on our senior squad and fringe players across Europe for obvious reasons. I don’t have the bandwidth to cover HNL for those reasons.
I’m just saying don’t knock the league if you aren’t watching it. There are good players on almost every team and the style of play is pretty good for the most part.
Do you watch a full game not played by Dinamo or Hajduk every weekend?
I usually watch both their games and then Rijeka if I can. Rijeka has changed a lot since they brought in the coach from Zrinjski and are turning things around.
I actually enjoy watching Istra, Slaven and Varazdin and I’d rather watch them than Southampton without Orsic playing or Fiorentina without Brekalo. I think in a one game series, these teams could beat clubs in the bottom half in most leagues
Maybe I’m biased, but it would be great to see Mamic back in the HNL with another team.
Would be interesting if he could build up a grassroots program with another club and prove that he is one of the major reasons why we medaled twice in the past four years.
That probably takes years to develop. Adding the right people , having the infrastructure at the club to be able to pay for all sorts of things.
Mamic does a good job surrounding himself with the right people and letting them do their jobs.
I get the vibe that Hajduk runs things like an old boys club of Split elitists and their family friends.
“Naš Hajduk” gathering funds and owning a large portion of the club seems like a good concept (in theory) but it may be one of those things that doesn’t really work (in practice), especially when you’re representing like a hundred thousand donating fans (who all probably just want the team to win at any cost and don’t really look at the bigger picture).
Jakobusic seemed like a good hire but there’s only so much one man can do.
Not sure what the goals are really. Seems like they’re still changing coaches on the regular, they still bring in some mediocre foreign talent, and (until recently) rarely bring up their younger talent into the first team.
But if they can’t convince Luka Vušković to stick around, and just end up selling him for peanuts to some club that won’t really invest in his development, then there’s really no point in trying to develop the youth. They need to have players want to stay with Hajduk and develop (the same way Dinamo was able to pry Dani Olmo from Barca or keep Gvardiol on loan after his sale).
Some people on here forget that Mamic is a convicted criminal, who escaped Croatian justice and is now living in exile. He stole millions from Dinamo by taking money from player transfers, money that should have gone into Dinamo’s bank account.
We don’t need him back in Croatian Football. He needs to come back and serve his six-year prison term, the same applies to his brother Zoran who is also in Bosnia.
We have enough talented youth players coming through the HNL clubs and the HNS Youth teams that I’m confident that our future is looking bright and that we will be regular participants at major tournament’s such as EURO’s and World Cups.
He became a criminal because the criminals that put him in power wanted him out. He got away with everything because they allowed him to, until they didn’t.
Thinking he worked as a lone wolf is naive.
Everybody has their hand out in Europe.
Look MART, Dinamo never sued Mamic and the judges that sentenced him got caught for taking bribes…I believe at least one or two of them are now in jail. A couple of weeks back there was a similar case in Italy where the club did the same thing Mamic did…it’s illegal and immoral but it’s the way things happen in Soo many clubs in Europe.
Apparently Livaja got paid by the city of Split, they gave him city owned properties because they didn’t have cash…is that legal? From what we do know…we know that Mamic was never reported for stealing anything from Dinamo, it was his political haters that brought up the charges and like I said, this under the table process happens everywhere in the sport, Mamic is not unique.
The judges took bribes from Mamic.
Seriously?! You’re saying it’s ok because the bribes were from Mamic? In what system is it ok for any judge to take bribes? The fact that a judge would take a bribe tells you that system is corrupt.
Are you trying to say a judge will only take a bribe from Mamic but not from anyone else?
No, I’m not saying that. Mamic bribed the judges but when they found him guilty, he came out and pointed out that he had bribed the judges. That is a fact as was reported on HRT news and Cro Media. The judges were sacked and rightly so, but Mamic as we all know escaped justice by going to Bosnia.
The men is a crook and they should also add a couple of years to his six-year sentence for admitting to bribing judges, which is also a criminal offence.
Love the new podcast!
According to Sportske Novosti, Dinamo are trying to save Orsic from Southampton.
https://sportske.jutarnji.hr/sn/nogomet/hnl/klubovi/dinamo/doznajemo-krece-velika-operacija-povratka-mislava-orsica-u-dinamo-dogovor-pada-vec-iduceg-tjedna-15325513
I think that ship has sailed. I loved his intensity in 2018, but he’s been declining ever since. First he would need to earn a “call up”, then he would need to apologise. Unfortunately, I don’t think either will happen.
Rebic will be 30 anyway this year. Who cares at this point.
We have better options at RW now anyway.
Brekalo having a resurgence in his career at LW is more important with Perisic on his last legs, Orsic not playing at Southampton, and Gabriel Vidovic still only being 19.
Need some additional depth there until Orsic comes back to Dinamo next year, and Vidovic continues to develop.
If Rebic was to apologise and was playing well for AC Milan, I would have him back. However, we all know that he will not apologise and that is the end of story.
Good news is that Brekalo played 85 minutes for Fiorentina in the QF of the Conference League against Lech Poznan. He looked good in 4 – 1 away win and I was surprised how well he played. If he continues to play regularly, I’m sure that Dalic will have him back in the squad for NL matches in June.
No to Ante Rebic thanks for 2018 al no thanks for me to comeback.