In a surprise announcement, officials at HNK Rijeka named former Dinamo Zagreb star Igor Bišćan as the head coach of Rijeka after Matjaz Kek offered his resignation following a tough defeat against HNK Gorica on Saturday.
However Rijeka fans, most notably the supporters group Armada, have voiced their discontent with the decision, stating Biščan is “not welcome”.
Biščan is coming off a successful season as the skipper of Olimpija Ljubljana, where he won the domestic double before getting sacked by the club chairman.
Rijeka has faced its problems this season and sit in fifth place, but it is much in part to the mass sell off of talent in the off season and recent injuries suffered by the remaining stars. Matjaz Kek will always be remembered as the man who lead Rijeka to their first domestic league championship and Croatian double, ending what seemed to be an unstoppable streak of Dinamo championships.
Belgium should walk off the pitch for their euro qualifiers !!
Sorry Ante but it had to be said lol
I wonder why Brugge fans didn’t try to sabotage the Belgian National Team’s run in the World Cup?
What gives?
Yikes, I’ve been on record saying he has been on my radar for Dalic’s replacement. Crazy guy may have made a deal with the devil (a serb in this case)
If true, he is an even better coach than I thought:
a) some of his losses were intentional, meaning he prob could have won more.
b)can win even when forced to buy shitty Serb players.
Hope the Croats on the team, including Mitrovic, didn’t help in any fixes.
What we now know about Ivan Leko.
When he was playing in Belgium, he took a Serbian manager, Dejan Veljkovic (an ex-football player).
Veljkovic really made it: probably the second most important football manager in Belgium. And he was smart, he didn’t appear in the media. Almost nobody knew him.
In the meantime, Leko did well as coach of St-Truiden VV, a little club in Belgium. Okay but not extremely well. It came to everybody in Belgium as a big surprise that one of the biggest teams in Belgium (Club Brugge) hired him as coach.
Now it turns out that it was Veljkovic who made this happen for Leko.
Leko does pretty well for Club Brugge (became champion last season) but apparently Leko had to do things in return for Veljkovic after what Veljkovic did for him.
What he had to do in return is still uncertain. Probably making Club Brugge buy Veljkovic’ players, maybe even lose some games…since it seems to be a gambling maffia too.
Leko is the coach of Club Brugge who are in the Champions League. Searches carried out in Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro as part of the Belgian investigation.
Ivan Leko got arrested. Police just confirmed that he will spend the night in a prison cell.
Tremendous football scandal in Belgium.
Matchfixing, tax fraude, corruption….
Several football managers are arrested. EvenClub Brugge coach Ivan Leko is being interrogated by the police. It doesn’t look too good for him.
More to follow
Probable lineup against England:
Livakovic – Pivaric, Lovren, Vida, Jedvaj – Rakitic, Modric, Kovacic – Perisic, Pjaca, Rebic.
Kalinic, Barisic and Santini are injured. Strinic still out with his heart issue, Vrsaljko not fully fit.
Kramaric and Badelj most likely first off the bench.
Just making fun of the Serbs.
Zlatan you dont have to try to be an Ustasa wannabe in every post. Why was this little rant even necessary?
Also i left out they will never have a Golden boot winner as well or ever make a World Cup Final.
Slovenija Slovencina Nogometna Zveza Slovenije Serbs will always be jealous and will never get Second and third place at a World Cup or a Golden Ball winner. Better for Serbs to give up playing nogomet just will be in the shadows of Croatia.
No way.
Kek is awesome.
He took Slovenia to the World Cup by beating Guus Hiddink’s Russia side, then (during the World Cup) Fabio Capello’s England size barely squeezed by them in a must-win game. Slovenia would have made the Round of 16 at the 2010 World Cup if it wasn’t for that lucky win.
As Rijeka coach, he beat teams like AC Milan, Stuttgart, Austria Vienna, Feyenoord, Standard Liege…and drew teams like Sevilla, Real Betis, Olympiacos, AEK, Salzburg, and Lyon.
Rijeka was the only Croatian team that didn’t embarrass us in European competition in recent year.
Dinamo finally has a good coach in Bjelica. It would be a shame if some other Croatian League team missed out on snagging Kek before he leaves Cro.
Good decision. Kek was overrated.
Stupid move.
Hajduk should try and snag Kek