In anything but surprising news, both UEFA Cup teams from Croatia will move onto the next round. Hajduk smashed Birkirkara in Malta, 3-0, with goals by Ivan Strinić (4′), Mladen Bartolović (45′) and Senijad Ibričić (90′). Slaven Belupo mirrored Hajduk’s efforts with a 4-0 win vs. Marsaxlokk FC with goals by Mario Bilen (25′), Kristijan Čaval (72′) and a double by Bojan Vručina (74′, 90′).
Hajduk and Slaven beat their Maltese counterparts 7-0 and 8-0 on aggregate and will now play in the UEFA Cup 2nd qualifying round. The draw to see who Hajduk and Slaven will play next takes place on August 1st and the next game kicks off August 14th.
Although the games played out to expected results and won’t make the front page of the paper, some Torcida members who made the trip to Malta for the Hajduk match just might. In the 65th minute of the game, they got a bit rowdy and lit flares to celebrate the result of the game. Maltese police came over to stop the fans; and that’s when the fight ensued. I’m sure you can get a good idea of what happened from the pictures above. Denis was scheduled to be at the game today and hopefully he can give us more insight on what exactly happened.
This has been Croatian fans’ 2nd run in with Malta police in 3 years. In 2005, after a 2006 World Cup qualifier ended in a draw for the Vatreni, Croatian fans were so upset they started ripping out seats from the stadium and throwing them at the local police. It must be something they put in the water in Malta to make the Croatians get so angry so quickly.