It took Rijeka a long time to get to the promised land; and their next step will be a tough one.
Rijeka cruised by Welsh champions, The New Saints in their own home in western England this afternoon. Two goals from Mario Gavranovic, and goals from Florentin Matei, Aleksander Gorgon, and Stefan Ristovski were more than enough to defeat one of only a few full-time professional teams that partake in the Welsh Premier League.
The Welshmen were able to snag one back, not giving up to the bitter end, but one goal is the only consolation they will get … oh, that and roughly 360,000 pounds for making it that far in the tournament.
Rijeka will face a tougher challenge in the third round of qualifiers. They will all but likely play Austrian champs Red Bull Salzburg in the next round, which is no easy feat. The football gods were not kind to Rijeka in their first Champions League run, but the mighty Croatian champs have seen worse in Europe.
Hopefylly Rijeka will take inspiration from Dinamo’s dramatic win against the Austrian club last year in Champions League qualifiers. Dinamo defeated Salzburg 2-1 in extra time last August.
Two years ago in Europa League, Rijeka fought Sevilla to the wire in both group stage matches, drawing the eventual champions 2-2 at Kantrida and losing by a small 1-0 margin in Spain.
of course no one will say anything about our alpine Serb neighbors..
Bobby, we all know they won’t..
Let’s see if Maribor (Slovenia) gets a similiar ban for its fans singing “Ubi ubi Ustase” during their match against Zrinjski Mostar.
http://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr/sport/hajduk/clanak/id/497846/bomba-na-poljudu-protiv-brondbya-bez-publike-fare-prijavio-skandiranje-ubij-srbina-u-dugopolju
Edit: ‘Ubij Srbina’ is a-okay in my book.
what did Hajduk get fined for? were the navijaci being dickbags, per usual? what happened?
Hajduk’s home game against Brondby (Denmark) will be played behind closed doors – UEFA also fined us 55,000 Euro.
Bummer., I’ll be in Split the day of that match – August 3rd. Anybody know if they set up big screen TV’s for the game anywhere in town?
Osijek gets past Luzern on aggregate, now to face PSV next round.
Dinamo to face Odd from Norway.
Hajduk to face Bronby.
Rijeka to face Salzburg.
Aside from Osijek, we should be able to pocket a fair amount of coefficient points this season.
@soulipa. I hear you! Kek should be putting horses on the courses for the national team in my opinion. Cacic out of his league there. Kek much better choice.
Forza Fiume !
Two years in a row Salzburg goes down to HNL?
Kek will put the horses in the courses.
Truths comment was pretty funny. Gotta give it to him for that one
Iggy drunk again. Thinks something from Truth Troll is funny.
I do find your Oluja references re blisters funny, Truth, but to be fair, anyone who watched Goran during his career as i did would know how many times Goran retired due to blisters, it was in the dozens, it was an ongoing massive concern for Goran for most of his career too so Cilic isn’t the first
Zrinjski 1-0!!!
All i did was retell my brothers Story from the oluja. They were all on the line and ready to advance when gotovina walks down. He shouts how he’s heard people have blisters and if it’s true, he’ll have no choice but to delay the operation… So we can’t hold the blisters thing against cilic…. It’s no joke injury
Croatia’s best team takes care of business once again.
Off to Austrija!
At least that’s what the montecarlo simulation said
Pretty sure he was walking barefoot
“Riding a tractor eastbound out of Krajina.”
Hilarious!!
Haven’t had a chuckle like that from this site in a long time..
@anonymous. Correct again brother!
Truth troll coming up with more lies and more alternative names to troll under. Now he’s claiming his brother was in oluja… doing what, riding a tractor esstbound out of krajina? Serbs and Croats the same? Ivy league son? Continuing to crap om croatian athletes? Please truth troll, just stop.
Save some goals for the next round, boys! Off to Salzburg.
4-0!
Croatians and Serbs are the same. Shhhhhhh don’t tell anyone. This ethnic divide is all made up. If you don’t believe me, I’ll line up a mix of 10 Serbs and 10 Croats and you tell me which one is which
2-0!
1-0!
Why doesn’t anyone mention all the times the balkan serbos start up with their balkan serbshit mentality?, here we go again. When your country, nationality and loser dregs culture and civilization has nothing to offer, then just provocate how great serbs are, make heroes and saints of war criminals, glorify shitardism etc. what a pathetic shit people.
https://www.vecernji.hr/sport/delije-i-grobari-provociraju-s-tri-prsta-pored-hrvatskih-spomenika-i-uriniraju-po-grbovima-1183390
Well now it’s getting reported that cilic faked his injury
Or to go a step further…. His injury was a blister!
You can’t make this stuff up
I remember my brother telling me about his experience in the oluja. They were all ready to go but they had to delay it a day cause of blisters