Croatian League - Hrvatska nogometna liga

[Rikafip]

For example - Feyenoord spent the same on Ivanušec - a 24-year old winger with much higher resell value. That's a very good transfer, Livaković's one is in my opinion a much better deal for Dinamo than for Fener.

That deal is awful for Dinamo and I'm sure that Mamic (who I don't like btw) would be able to sell him for much more. When I was reading rumours that Feyenoord will get him for ~10 million I thought it was a joke and it still baffles me that they sold him so cheap as after selling Šutalo and Livaković they weren't in need for cash.

Was there any plan of Dinamo Zagreb after Livakovic? Zagreb are a team that needs to be successful in the league and European competitions both.

They knew it will be impossible to keep Livaković indefinitely so few years ago they bought Nevistic for 3 million, who spent last 2 seasons on loan and is a very solid goalkeeper.

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[Slow death]

the games of this round have already ended, the dynamo that played against rijeka, managed to leave that game with a victory, but it was not an easy victory even with the dynamo dominating the whole game, they managed to score 2 goals in this game thanks to a penalty, but when the game was just a few minutes away, the dynamo conceded a goal, and it's funny that they had more than 70% of ball possession in this game and couldn't win comfortably even though they were playing at home. with this result, dynamo now has 7 points and occupies position number 4. while the leader of the table has 15 points, and a big difference in points

looking at ajduk's next game, I see that they will have a game that will not be very difficult, at least in this game ajduk can leave with a draw in case they have difficulties in winning the game, but I very much doubt that they will leave this game with some defeat . while in the case of dinamo their next game will be against a strong opponent, it will be against an opponent that currently occupies the number 2 position in the table, so I see that in this game dinamo can lose points, mainly because before that game they will have europa league game, this somehow obliged that at least some players need to rest in this game

and even if the dinamo coach does not choose to let players rest in this game, the players will be tired and their performance will not be 100% good, so I see dinamo losing points in this game. looking at the current scenario it is possible that this season maybe ajduk can become champions if they manage to take advantage of each game and strengthen themselves very well as a team, but if they cannot keep that distance of points and drop in performance in the next games then the Dynamo will be champion. we will see in the next rounds how each team will perform

[cryptofrka]

That deal is awful for Dinamo and I'm sure that Mamic (who I dint like btw) would be able to sell him for much more. When I was reading rumours that Feyenoord will get him for ~10 million I thought it was a joke and it still baffles me that the sold him so cheap as after selling Šutalo and Livaković they weren't in the need for cash.

Yep, agreed - I felt he'd go for 20+.
Maybe Dinamo was afraid - Ivanušec was great as a kid and then suddenly dropped in form quite significantly. Last season was his first really good one in the last 3 years or so, so maybe they wanted to cash in and not risk him returning to that version.

Still - Ivanušec is a great player for this level of football and I do agree that Dinamo should have risked more and demanded a higher fee.

I also agree with the topic that Altay is a quite good goalkeeper for Fenerbahçe's level. However he was really in bad with the fans. He was in a situation that he would still be protested even if he concedes 1 goal after having a clean sheet for 10 matches. This parting will be good for both sides. When we think that Manchester United will pay 7 million euros for Altay Bayındır it didn't cost Fenerbahçe too much to replace their goalkeeper.

So, it's agreed that he will be sold to United? In that case OK, getting Livaković makes more sense.

[Rikafip]

Still - Ivanušec is a great player for this level of football and I do agree that Dinamo should have risked more and demanded a higher fee.

Thinking of it, he shoulnd't have been sold at all. I can understand selling Sutalo as ~20M is serious amount of money, Livakovic simply wanted to move on so I can understand that too, but after selling those two crucuail players, there was simply no need to selling another one, especially not before end of Europa League qualifications. Its almost like someone (Mamic?) is sabotaging Dinamo because what they did this summer doesn't make any sense at all.


Just watching Dinamo losing against Osijek (despite my team losing its a pleasure watching HNL game being played at modern stadium) and I would be very surprised if Hajduk doesn't win title this year because Dinamo is just awful. Stronger clubs would be affected by losing three out of four best players, and at this point I woulnd't be surprised if Petkovic doesn't leave too because there's no one left that he can play with, expect Baturina.

edit: lool, what a crazy end of the game, Petkovic scored 2 penalties in the last 10 minutes and Dinamo leads 3:2

[slackovic]

Thinking of it, he shoulnd't have been sold at all. I can understand selling Sutalo as ~20M is serious amount of money, Livakovic simply wanted to move on so I can understand that too, but after selling those two crucuail players, there was simply no need to selling another one, especially not before end of Europa League qualifications. Its almost like someone (Mamic?) is sabotaging Dinamo because what they did this summer doesn't make any sense at all.


Just watching Dinamo losing against Osijek (despite my team losing its a pleasure watching HNL game being played at modern stadium) and I would be very surprised if Hajduk doesn't win title this year because Dinamo is just awful. Stronger clubs would be affected by losing three out of four best players, and at this point I woulnd't be surprised if Petkovic doesn't leave too because there's no one left that he can play with, expect Baturina.

edit: lool, what a crazy end of the game, Petkovic scored 2 penalties in the last 10 minutes and Dinamo leads 3:2

I think that because Dinamo sold three of their key players other teams will be more competitive for winning the title this season. But that's sad because instead of other teams getting better to compete with Dinamo, now Dinamo is weakened and now the race for the title will become interesting once again. It should have been the other way around.

More interesting is Hajduk losing to Istra. After a great start of the season, they lost points against one of the weaker teams in the league.

[Rikafip]

I think that because Dinamo sold three of their key players other teams will be more competitive for winning the title this season. But that's sad because instead of other teams getting better to compete with Dinamo, now Dinamo is weakened and now the race for the title will become interesting once again. It should have been the other way around.

True, HNL recently became more interesting not by other clubs being stronger but instead by Dinamo getting weaker, which is obvious when you look at our country's UEFA coefficient which is decreasing for quite some time and it relies solely on Dinamo. If other clubs did their part of the work (especially Hajduk) we would be now at the situation where Serbian league is, with Crvena Zvezda getting straight into CL and half the league into Europe qualifications (then again they were horrendous this year).

In other news, rumour is that Ademi might come back from China which at the current situation would be a very good news but in the end (for Dinamo) everything depends whether Petkovic stays as without him they have no chances to win championship.

More interesting is Hajduk losing to Istra. After a great start of the season, they lost points against one of the weaker teams in the league.

They really shouldn't lose points on these type of "small games" games if they want to have a good chance of winning HNL.

[slackovic]

/snip

In other news, rumour is that Ademi might come back from China which at the current situation would be a very good news but in the end (for Dinamo) everything depends whether Petkovic stays as without him they have no chances to win championship.

Yes, I forgot to mention that. It would be good for him and for Dinamo if he returns, but I'm not sure what is the deadline to have the list of players that will play in the Conference league. It doesn't make sense for him to come only to play the Croatian league even though it would help Dinamo win the title once again.

[CLS63]

/snip

In other news, rumour is that Ademi might come back from China which at the current situation would be a very good news but in the end (for Dinamo) everything depends whether Petkovic stays as without him they have no chances to win championship.

Yes, I forgot to mention that. It would be good for him and for Dinamo if he returns, but I'm not sure what is the deadline to have the list of players that will play in the Conference league. It doesn't make sense for him to come only to play the Croatian league even though it would help Dinamo win the title once again.

Teams in the Conference League submitted their squads for the groups to UEFA last night. Even though Dinamo Zagreb lost power this summer I think they will qualify from Group C very comfortably. Balkani and Astana aren't in a position to challenge Zagreb.

What do you think the main reason of Croatia league's being this much behind can be while Croatia are in a very good position as a national team?

[Rikafip]

Teams in the Conference League submitted their squads for the groups to UEFA last night. Even though Dinamo Zagreb lost power this summer I think they will qualify from Group C very comfortably. Balkani and Astana aren't in a position to challenge Zagreb.

Yep, Dinamo shoulnd't have much issues passing to the 2nd Confeence League round but how much further can they go is questionable. The only goof thing about them playing that instead of Europa League/Champions |League is that it will be easier to get points for UEFA coefficient (that's one of the things that doesn't make muchs esne to me, win in Confenece League giving same amount of points as in CL) which may help them next year.

What do you think the main reason of Croatia league's being this much behind can be while Croatia are in a very good position as a national team?

We are a small country with less than 4 million people (on top of that not the richest one) meaning its a small market so you can't expect our league to be competitive and to keep our best players for long. We could be better though, but majority of other clubs are underperforming (Hajduk Split being a perfect example of incompetence) for a long time that brings us down even more. Dinamo can only carry our league up until certain point and after that you need other clubs doing their part of work

[slackovic]

Yep, Dinamo shoulnd't have much issues passing to the 2nd Confeence League round but how much further can they go is questionable. The only goof thing about them playing that instead of Europa League/Champions |League is that it will be easier to get points for UEFA coefficient (that's one of the things that doesn't make muchs esne to me, win in Confenece League giving same amount of points as in CL) which may help them next year.

Wow, I didn't know that a win in the Conference league carries the same number of points as a win in the UCL. I always thought that number of points depends on the quality of the team that you are playing against. That would make much more sense to me because it's not the same to beat Chelsea or Sparta Prague.

What do you think the main reason of Croatia league's being this much behind can be while Croatia are in a very good position as a national team?

We are a small country with less than 4 million people (on top of that not the richest one) meaning its a small market so you can't expect our league to be competitive and to keep our best players for long. We could be better though, but majority of other clubs are underperforming (Hajduk Split being a perfect example of incompetence) for a long time that brings us down even more. Dinamo can only carry our league up until certain point and after that you need other clubs doing their part of work

The main reason why Croatian league is so weak is exactly what Rikafip explained. We are a small country but somehow very good players come out of our youth football academies. But 90% of players in the Croatian national team are playing in foreign clubs. I guess that's one of the reasons why our national team is so good. Players sign for foreign clubs where they can develop much more than they would develop in some Croatian club.

[Rikafip]

Wow, I didn't know that a win in the Conference league carries the same number of points as a win in the UCL. I always thought that number of points depends on the quality of the team that you are playing against. That would make much more sense to me because it's not the same to beat Chelsea or Sparta Prague.

If I remember correctly, it wasn't like that before and CL wins were brining more points than lower tier competitions, but at some point UEFA decided to change, probably to give weaker clubs and countries a chance to compete agaisnt richer leagues and some leagues managed to profit greatly from it (unfortunately not us since all of our clubs got kicked out).

In other news, Arijan Ademi is back to Dinamo which means their chances of winning the league immediately increased and even bookies adjusted the odds and Dinamo is again the favorite (1.7) while odds on Hajduk are 2.3. Since it looks like Petkovic is not going anywhere and with the return of Ademi, I might put some money on Dinamo.   

[slackovic]

/snip

In other news, Arijan Ademi is back to Dinamo which means their chances of winning the league immediately increased and even bookies adjusted the odds and Dinamo is again the favorite (1.7) while odds on Hajduk are 2.3. Since it looks like Petkovic is not going anywhere and with the return of Ademi, I might put some money on Dinamo.   

Odds are definitely tempting but it's too long to wait for the bet to settle so I will skip it. Too bad that Ademi didn't join earlier so he could play in the group stage of the Conference league. This way he will have to wait and hope that Dinamo will be able to advance to the knockout stage. They certainly have the quality but you never know...

[Rikafip]

Things are slowly going back to normal at HNL as Hajduk is showing the same old behaviour as in the last almost 20 years -  starting good and sometimes during summer starting to fall apart. They lasted maybe few games more than usual, but ultimately we are starting to see Hajduk we all know.

After first 5 games and Dinamo having shit load of issues I really thought that this might be their year and that they will finally win championship, but after the last night's game vs Gorica I think that's not realistic anymore. They were simply horrendous even though they had 2 weeks to prepare for that game and I don't even wanna think how would they look like if they managed to reach Europa League/Conference League when even this is too much for them.

[cryptofrka]

Things are slowly going back to normal at HNL as Hajduk is showing the same old behaviour as in the last almost 20 years -  starting good and sometimes during summer starting to fall apart. They lasted maybe few games more than usual, but ultimately we are starting to see Hajduk we all know.

After first 5 games and Dinamo having shit load of issues I really thought that this might be their year and that they will finally win championship, but after the last night's game vs Gorica I think that's not realistic anymore. They were simply horrendous even though they had 2 weeks to prepare for that game and I don't even wanna think how would they look like if they managed to reach Europa League/Conference League when even this is too much for them.

The difference this season is that we can't expect Dinamo to maintain the same level in which they performed in recent years.
I agree that Hajduk did not do themselves any favors with the last few performances, but Dinamo is beatable this season - and that is something that has changed.

They should still have enough to be champions - but I feel they'll have to work for it.

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Did you see Pjaca's performance for Rijeka? If he continues like this, he'll be HNL's best player by far.

[Rikafip]

The difference this season is that we can't expect Dinamo to maintain the same level in which they performed in recent years.

The fall started last year, and unfortunately HNL didn't become more interesting by others getting stronger but instead by Dinamo getting weaker is not a good thing, especially in the term of UEFA coefficient.

They should still have enough to be champions - but I feel they'll have to work for it.

Even Jakirevic said the other day that national league is priotity over Conference League, meaning they are aware that it won't be a walk in a park like in previous years.

Did you see Pjaca's performance for Rijeka? If he continues like this, he'll be HNL's best player by far.

Yeah I saw, and if he remains healthy (which is usually his main problem)  I don't expect him to stay in Rijeka for more than a season. He should have come back sooner to HNL, instead wasting him time in Anderlecht and several other clubs but better late than never I guess.

We can only imagine what could have happened and where he would play now if it wasn't for that injury during that stupid and unecessary friendly game vs Estonia back in 2017...

[slackovic]

/snip

Did you see Pjaca's performance for Rijeka? If he continues like this, he'll be HNL's best player by far.

Yeah I saw, and if he remains healthy (which is usually his main problem)  I don't expect him to stay in Rijeka for more than a season. He should have come back sooner to HNL, instead wasting him time in Anderlecht and several other clubs but better late than never I guess.

We can only imagine what could have happened and where he would play now if it wasn't for that injury during that stupid and unecessary friendly game vs Estonia back in 2017...

I was really surprised to see how Pjaca reacted in one situation where a referee awarded a corner kick for Rijeka. He approached him and said that no one from Osijek touched the ball and that he should change his decision so the referee awarded the ball for Osijek. Unfortunately I didn't get to watch the entire game but his reaction was really unexpected.