The Boys are back at Maksimir. After six years of boycotting, the Bad Blue Boys returned to the north stand for the Dinamo-Juventes Champions League match last week and made their first league appearance, bringing back a true atmosphere to the grounds during the Eternal Derby.
Hajduk Split brought along an impressive contingency of Torcida, who were allowed to enter the stadium this time, to counter the fury of the BBB. The fans were the brunt of the excitement during the match, as the contested derby ended with a scoreless draw after a controversial off side call was ruled against Hadjuk.
Over 12,000 fans finally turned Maksimir’s library into a fire-fueled battle. More flares were thrown on the field than there were goals, and that wasn’t hard to do. Eight yellow cards were issued to players during the match, while Ivylo Petev made his debut as the coach of the Modri. Ivaylo’s first order of business was to start the young, but more experienced Dominik Livakovic in goal for Dinamo rather than 18-year-old Adrian Semper.
The scoreless draw kept both teams where they started on the league table. Dinamo remains in third place while Hajduk remains in fourth.
Rijeka is looking more and more like the favorite to in the league this season, but can they keep it up?
Rijeka routinely defeated Istra 1961 on Friday afternoon Istra has been struggling since ditching Igor Pamic early last season. Since then, a revolving door of coaches have come and gone, so it really wasn’t a true test of Rijeka this week. The match did have plenty of positives though. Newcomer, Mate Crnic of Slovenia scored his first goal for Rijeka while Austrian Alexander Gorgon scored his fifth goal of the season. Rijkea remain in the lead and face NK Osijek next week.
Speaking of tests, here is another real test to see if Osijek is the real deal this season. The team that has spent more money than ever has already defeated Dinamo Zagreb this year, but now take on an even harder task.
Osijek remain in second place after their second consecutive 1-1 draw on Saturday. They payed Inter Zapresic in Osijek and were only able to muster up one goal scored from the penalty spot by Muzafer Ejupi. With the draw of Dinamo and Hajduk this week, Osijek had a prime opportunity to distance themselves from the reigning champs, but remain only one point ahead of Dinamo in second place.
Eros Grezda of NK Lokomotiva made sure that RNK Split would remain winless this season after scoring two goals to give the Lokosi a 2-0 victory.
Not only is Split still winless after 11 matches, they have only scored two goals all season. This performance is even worse than last year’s bottom team, NK Zagreb.
The match seemed to entertain about a dozen senior citizens (the diehard Splicani who favor a match at Park Mladezi over following Hajduk to Zagreb) and a few family members of the players who showed their support for the struggling side.
The win for Lokomotiva upped their position to fifth place.
HNK Cibalia are also without a win this season, but found themselves drawing Slaven Belupo 0-0 on Sunday. Cibalia is one point ahead of Split on the table.
When does Rijeka get its new stadium?
I wonder if Volpi would drop serious cash if Rijeka has a chance for Champions League football next year?
Nice scenes in Zagreb!