Oh my…
Dinamo someway, somehow are back on top of the Croatian table…for the time being. Dinamo have turned the entire HNL race upside with a huge 3-1 win at Poljud Saturday night. Pending the Rijeka result Sunday, Dinamo may control their own destiny down the final stretch which is absolutely insane if you saw their 8-point deficit only one month ago.
-what the hell is Lučić doing on the first Dinamo goal? He looks like a Sunday League keeper at best on that play.
-Livaja with an incredible trap inside the box and shot far post to level the match at 1-1. Hajduk was still in good shape here at the 56′ mark.
-Hajduk backline falls asleep on Kulenović header that makes it 2-1
-How does Durdov not score on a free shot on net?! He had it all to himself and would have made the game 2-2 but Galešić comes out of nowhere to head the ball out. Amazing effort!
-91st minute: no penalty call for Hajduk??? That could have been called either way. A penalty would have made the game 2-2.
-Dinamo seals the deal in injury time on the last kick of the match with more suspect goalkeeping from Lučić.
All in all, Hajduk will kick themselves for this effort. They gave up two awful goals and should have scored an easy one. They may have also been given a penalty in another universe. But as it stands, Dinamo on top and Hajduk’s dream season of lifting the Croatian title for the first time in 20 years is in trouble.
What a crazy last month of the HNL season. What an ultimate comeback if Dinamo does in fact win the league…AGAIN. What a catastrophic collapse if Hajduk finishes 2nd or 3rd. Rijeka is still in the mix. But man, this has to be rough if you’re a Hajduk supporter. After beating Dinamo twice and drawing once already this season, they couldn’t muster out a point on home soil. Let’s see what happens with Rijeka in 24 hours.
Does anyone want to win the league this season?
Hajduk have not won a game since April 5th. Rijeka have somehow lost three straight matches to Istra, Osijek and Dinamo. Dinamo have zero business being one point behind both Rijeka and Hajduk, however, here we are.
Dinamo have been in the best form; winning 3 out of their last 4 matches. All is still to play for in a crazy HNL season that may go down to the final game to crown a league champion. Hajduk host Dinamo at Poljud Saturday while Rijeka host Gorica Sunday. In three matches vs. Dinamo this season, Hajduk have 2 wins and a draw. You really can’t ask for much more if you’re a Hajduk fan.
Both Rijeka and Hajduk control their own destiny since they play each other one more time. If either win their final four matches, they will be crowned 2025 HNL champs. However, if Rijeka drop points in any situation and Dinamo run the table at 4-0, they will once again win the league. Still too many scenarios to run through, but the Hajduk/Dinamo match will start painting a better picture after 90 minutes at Poljud.
Give us your predictions for Hajduk vs. Dinamo. CroatianSports prediction: 1-0 Hajduk
If Dinamo finish second place, its possible they will make it directly to Europa league stage…but there’s a lot of “ifs”:
🆕 change in UECL title-holder rebalancing ranking!
Porto 🇵🇹 climbed to 3rd place in Liga Portugal, so now Dinamo Zagreb 🇭🇷 holds a position that could take them directly to UEL league stage!
This is what needs to happen:
1⃣ Conference League winners need to finish on CL/EL position in domestic league (e.g. Chelsea 🏴 win UECL and finish Top 6 in EPL)
2⃣ Dinamo 🇭🇷 needs to stay 2nd in league behind Rijeka, with Rijeka winning the Cup
3⃣ Porto 🇵🇹 needs to stay Top 3 in league (82% chance)
4⃣ Club Brugge 🇧🇪 needs to stay Top 2 in league (92% chance)
5⃣ Feyenoord 🇳🇱 needs to stay Top 3 in league (94% chance)
In this case, Dinamo Zagreb 🇭🇷 would be the highest ranked team in UEL qualifiers and would jump from Q1 all the way to league stage, skipping 4 qualifying rounds!
Has Ivan Lucic been hanging out in the same crowds as Kenyan keepers Patrick Matasi and Ezekiel Owade ?
Something doesn’t smell right about the 1st and 3rd goal (he “deliberately” opened his legs to let the ball go through them ?)
btw: he too was at Bayern (like Pavlesic is now) and look how his career evolved, club and country, being at Bayern young doesn’t mean anything (they stack players like candy bars)
On the 2nd Meljnak sees the cross come in and for some strange reason starts backing off and gave Kelu a free header (instead of closing him and putting an arm into his back)
I didn’t watch the game, admittedly. But even the analysts at Slobodna Dalmacija are asking questions about this.
Those questions are, how did Hajduk let it get to this point. When you lose and draw so many matches at this stage you have to look at yourself introspectively and the reality is that Hajduk is a subpar team that needs major revamping. Too many middling players. Both Dinamo and Rijeka were awful this year according to analysts, so why was Hajduk not able to win? Refereeing? Come on man. Ok maybe in some of the games there were terrible calls, fair enough. Maybe this happened even in this match, but you cannot lose/draw that many games without letting it catch up to you at some point.
They need to let go of some players and fire some people in upper management.
Livaja has been decent this season, but he is not the only one they can count on to make things happen, and the team almost seems set up that way. Maybe it’s the money handling in the club that makes it harder for them to be able to afford players, maybe corruption I don’t know. But they need to figure shit out or this team will never win like this.
Hajduk relied on Livaja all season too much, they had no style of play and the individual red cards last few game cost them as well.
Diallo’s red card against Varazdin was bull$#h!t the opposition player dived and should have received a yellow card for faking. Kévin Théophile-Catherine should have had a red card for pulling down Diallo with his hands just outside the box in this game. Anyone that says otherwise is a myopic fool that would rather trudge through $#!T than grab a shovel and clean things up. Congrats to Dinamo, the HNS and refs on fixing another game. Bravo! 👏
First half was terrible to watch. I thought that Hajduk played really well in the second half and did not deserve to lose the match. In the attacking sense the second half was the best I have seen us play this season and had we played like that against some lesser team’s things could have been different.
Lucic is a disaster of a goalkeeper, first goal was a huge mistake by him and this is not the first time that he has stuffed up this season. Even with the second and in particular with the third goal he should have done better.
I don’t like normally complaining about the referees, however this time around there were some decisions that went against Hajduk, like Dinamo players not being yellow carded on a couple of occasions and the penalty shout in stoppage time that could have gone either way.
Kévin Théophile-Catherine deserved a red card in the first half. I rest my case.
Any streams?
How many faux red cards will Hajduk be given. HNL is a joke.
Hopefully at least one.
Love this defeatist attitude.
Why watch then?
Absolutely nothing wrong in todays game.
Was 13 minutes injury time not enough?
Bravo Dinamo.
Hajduk. lol.
Yamal who ?
Check out Frigan goal today
Elite elite movement, dribbing, close control and shot for the goal
Incredible stuff
yeah that was sensational