Hamburg striker and Croatia international Mladen Petrić must be feeling some pressure from former club teammate Ivica Olić,who is now at Bayern Munich, because the two keep ‘one upping’ each other in European competition. Although Petrić is involved in the less prestigious Europa League, his goals on the day should take a few eyes off of Bayern’s run into the Champions League semifinals in Germany.
PETRIĆ MAKES IT 1-0
With a first leg home victory of 2-1 over Standard Liège, Hamburg would still need to show up on the day to reach the Europa League semifinals. Petrić started and got Hamburg on the board in the 20′ with a strong header right in front of the goal. Standard equalized moments later and that’s when Petrić decided to stick a dagger into the hopes and dreams of the Belgian supporters.
Petrić managed to volley a ‘bicycle kick’ from 13 yards out right into the corner of the net. It was his fifth Europa League goal of the season. Hamburg will now face English side Fulham FC in the semifinals. Remember, the Europa League Final will be held at Hamburg’s home stadium: HSH Nordbank Arena. Talk about home-field advantage should they make it.
$5 TO RIDE ON MLADEN’S BICYCLE
Bwaaa. Why are our players firing on all cylinders when we are out of the World Cup? -CSR writer Denis Svirčić
@THE_REAL_JPAV
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The bicycle made #3 on Sportscenter's Top 10. Petric was robbed of #1 by 2 stickball plays. A basic slide catch by a catcher and a walk-off HR. Guys, there's 159 games left in the season and they're putting up baseball like it's going extinct.
Mladen, you were #1 in my Top 10 today, even from yesterday. An unbiased better QUALITY goal than Robben. Suck it Fisto!
Great goal by Petric, and on an almost completely unrelated side note, I would like to be a poor sport and say that all BC students and supporters can go **** themselves for just handing our number one seed top-ranked asses to us in hockey.
Champions League-quality that goal was.
Being on good form for club doesn't translate to being on form for country by any means.
It's definitely aggravating that we can't be there, especially with the quality of players we have for such a small country. I grew up seeing us in the World Cup since we were first eligible to qualify and it just won't feel right without Croatia there, I mean I will still watch it, but there just won't be any pride behind my viewership as there is when the Vatreni are playing. Hopefully this acts as some kind of motivation for the future as England seems to have had after missing the Euro. Anyways, go Argentina.
Anybody know when our next friendlies are?
I'll have to second what Denis said at the end of the article.
My English friend asked me the other day:
"Doesn't it piss you off to know that many of Croatia's players like Kranjcar, Modric, Olic, Corluka are in the form of their lives and they're not going to the World Cup?"
He's not my friend any longer…
DIIIIIIIIIIRTAAAAYYYYYY