When Dinamo Zagreb kicks off against Udinese at Stadio Friuli tomorrow at 18:00 local time, it will be in front of at least 1,700 hardcore Dinamo supporters. Večernji list has confirmed that all 1,700 tickets available to Dinamo have been sold, with the majority going to the Bad Blue Boys. Thousands more are expected to make the short 300 Km/3 hour trip across the boarder to Italy.
Italian media has reported that tickets were on sale all week and won't be available the day of the match. Also, a passport is required to enter the stadium.
I'm sure that security will be beefed up for this encounter. The Bad Blue Boys have been on the radar all over Europe the last few years or so. Hopefully, they will be respectful and the match goes "incident-free".
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For the Udinese supporters!
Good Luck Dinamo! At least give me something to write about :)
~Denis Svirčić, reporting from Lakerville
18 comments:
Bets! Bets! Any bets on an incident-free game tomorrow. I say there will be multiple incidents and all originating from the BBB.
William Hill Casino Odds
detained Dinamo fans - over/under 12
sign of a "confederate flag" - 5-1
sign of a "Vatican flag" - no odds
Dinamo starting a Croatia-Italy war 150-1
Torcida showing up to fight with Bad Blue Boys 20-1
Dinamo winning 200-1
All fun and games Dinamo, don't take it seriously. Good luck tomorrow. Less than 10 hours till kickoff.
lol Denis..
I actually hope they win. But I havent been following it much so I dont really know how Dinamo or Udinese have been playing.
I am not sure we will win. If we do win thats good, but spartak will have to lose to NEC and Tottenham Reserves so i don't think we will qualify. If we do we probably don't deserve it. Only the top two should qualify. Badelj, Ibanez, Tadic and Lovren all look promising for the future, but at the moment they are not really ready to play first team at this level. I've always thought Drpic, Hrgovic, Vrdoljak and Tomic were average players. Biscan is poor in defence and should be playing central midfield. Sammir should be progressing faster than he is. The only two quality players we have are Mandzukic and Pedro Morales. Mandzukic should move at the end of the season if he's got any sense. Sokota, Balaban and Mikic are going through the motions. We need to sign players who are proven at this level. Seems though Simic, Tomas, Leko and Krizanac would rather stay abroad than help us. If we got Schildenfeld or Cesar back or Babic or Vranjes or Ilicevic we may have more of a side, but the players we have at present are very average. Kalinic should stay at Hajduk till the end of the season. A proven striker like Zigic does not play at Valencia so it would be terrible if Kalinic went there and sat on the bench too. I think it would be good if Kalinic went the same route as Olic and played with CSKA or Zenit St Petersburg. Then moved to a big league at 23.
Anonymous, i agree in the fact Dinamo at the moment have too many average players. I too like Ibanez and lovern, i think lovern has national potential one day. But i dont like pedro reminds me of Kranjcar, skilled player who floats around too much. They need more croatian prospacts than these south americans and africans. I too like Ilicevic, but they already made a offer and it was to high of a asking price. I think babic should come back and start over. But like any sport, when you lose as many players as Dinamo has there will be a rebuiding period. I think Kalinic is overated, hope im proven wrong as we need more strikers, in the national team.
I did say "detained Dinamo fans - over/under 12"....
Sportske Novosti confirmed that 12 Dinamo fans were detained in northern Italy at a gas station.
SN story
"dvanaest navijača Dinama uhićeno je na dijelu autoceste između Palmanove i Tarvisija zbog divljanja na jednoj od benzinskih postaja."
Re: Vlad
I probably don't agree that we need more Croatian prospects and croatian players as there is not enough quality players in HNL1. I remember when we signed Vasilj, Jese, Ljubojevic, Buljat, Lucic, Jertec, Bartolovic, Karic, Zekic, Strok and people like that and most of them totally flopped and we finished in the bottom half of HNL. Only the very best croatian players should play with dinamo. The rest of the league is a good enough breeding ground for the likes of Anas Sharbini to prove themselves. We don't need to load our team full of them really. Niko Kranjcar's a class act. I know he was inconsistent and lazy in the croatian league, but he's really got his act together in england. A player like kranjcar needs to be tested. I agree we have lost too many quality players, we even sold any slightly above average player we had like mikulic, schildenfeld and koch who did not need to be sold. They got so much money for all the players they sold as well so we should have money to spend. I like morales. i think he's alright, but the system we play is wide open and makes him look like a liability. lets face it balkan teams are just feeder clubs these days sadly. This season though we've been particularly miserable. Our team is not even very well set up tactically.
Anonymous:
when i said we need more croatian players i din't say bad ones. I have no problem with foreign players if there good. But id rather have shity croatian player's than a shity foreigner, aka sammir, chago, morales, theres enough talent in croatian players in europe, if they spend a little money they can buy,and im not even talking about national team players. If you cant buy good foreigners don't buy any is my point. As for Niko to say he's a class act is a joke, he has never gave it his all for croatia, and is far from a true pro. Every time he play's he never runs its always the strikers running back helping out the mid not niko. I remember in wc o6, prso with one bad knee ran back to help the mid more than niko did, that is a class act. The media made him bigger and better than he really is.
I think you have some good points. I especially agree that kranjcar was out of condition and form at world cup 06 and should not have been in the playmaker role. I remember our centre back tudor also played in midfield in that team. That probably had something to do with Prso, Klasnic and Kranjcar having no support and Klasnic was ill whilst playing so he didn't move around much. However Prso's main problem was his lack of technical ability which Kranjcar has in abundance. Also Prso's strike rate for Croatia is not too clever. Eduardo and even People like Petric and Klasnic already overtaken his goal tally in far less games. As for dinamo Chago who we spent barely any money on was good in his first season and then he got an injury which nearly ended his career you should remember. he may get released at the end of the season anyway so you won't have to put up with him for too much longer. Morales and Sammir are both decent. We'll have to just both disagree on that one and regards Kranjcar who is rated at £10m. I think this arguement spans not only to Dinamo, but also to Croatia. If we just picked only Croatians that were born in Croatia our national side would lose Corluka (Bosnia), Modric (Bosnia), Klasnic, Kovac brothers (Germany), Petric/ Rakitic (Switzland), Eduardo (Brazil), Cvitanich (Argentina), Simunic (Australia). Even Kranjcar could have played for Austria and Prso could have played for France. Can you imagine our team without us having the policy we have. We'd have Balaban and Olic up front and Croatian's would feel embarrassed not proud of their team. As for Dinamo We aren't the only club who has to look abroad. Most of Dinamo's team is Croatian, the ones who aren't are probably our best players. Sammir could get better. He's still young and it took Eduardo time to become so good as he is. I still not sure why you don't like Morales. He's scored 7 goals from midfield in Croatia so far, is a Chile international and if he keeps up his tally he will have scored 14 by the end of the season. Surely thats a good signing. The only player who we could have signed of the same standard is Ibricic or Sharbini. Who else is there? I'll agree that not seen much from Suarez and Carlos is very ordinary and we also don't want to end up like Red Star who signed foriegn players on mass 10 of whom were terrible and already been released and only Castillo turned out to up to any standard. But the Dinamo team isn't like that we only have a handful really. Its the Croats in our team who i think are the worst rather than the foreign players though.
Anonymous:
I think you mis understood me, i dont have a problem with signing players abroad all i said is good ones. Instead of signing pedro why didn't they sign tomasov in the off season, not wait for a bidding war against hajduk, Bojan Vrucina,Babic, Youre rarely gonna get good foreign talent come to croatia, we had one da silva so know we think there all gonna turn out like that. As for prso,besides suker and boksic and da silva he's the best all around striker we had.
His goal rate sucks bc he played during one of our worst era. under baric we played tudor,rosso,kovac, in the midd even suker wouldnt score with our mid, and under cico things didn't change much. If Kranjcar so good why does he perform so poorly in tournaments. wco6 he didnt nothing in a role which gave him so much freedom.In euro 08 what did he do, one game he plays the wing does nothing, the next two game he plays behind the striker and nothing.And again olic is helping out the mid not niko, But yet in the media they say he's going to Aresenal, its all politics. Yes he has skill but theres a reason he plays in portsmouth, not milan or juve or madrid the teams they say hes going to every summer. AS for the national team there all croatian, and didnt have to pay for them, i live in north america and my roots are from livno i dont say im bosnian i say im croatian. And i wouldnt want any more players than da silva to play for croatia, he's the only exception, due to many reasons. As for dinamo best players, i cant really say manduzkic, i think biscan if he played in the mid, i think there all even no real star there. But i cant say at the moment one foreign thats stands out for me. As for prso, i remember being in Zagreb when he scored that huge goal against slovenia, which qualified us for euro. I think he was better than most people give him credit for.
I think this is a interesting discussion. Although you say all those players are Croatian we could easily have lost them. Eduardo could have made the Brazil squad last season. He's definitely better than Vagner Love, Fred, Alfonso Alves and personally i think he's better than Adriano too. Theres no question also that Switzerland are annoyed about Rakitic and Petric. Also I would argue against anyone who would say Klasnic, Robert Kovac and Niko Kovac would have not recieved German caps if Croatia hadn't have got in there first. Bosnia are extremely upset at us for the players who are born in Bosnia and then play in Croatia. I've heard many quotes from Halilhovic blasting Blazevic for getting Stanic, Zivkovic and Tomas to play for Croatia ahead of Bosnia. Even Prso could have at one point got a call up for the French National side. I think Olic and Prso are just the type of people who run around naturally. Petric and Klasnic are strikers too and yet they don't run about so much. I am not arguing that Kranjcar does run around much. I mean neither does Requilme. He does move around though into positions where he can be passed to and then he starts attacks. I think you'll find the reason that Kranjcar doesn't help out is basically because he is a poor runner full stop and has no stamina. Have you ever seen Kranjcar chase after a over hit pass or a outpace anyone. He always has to use his skill as he has no pace at all. I can't argue with you that Kranjcar does aid the defence. I was watching Croatia v Austria with my brother and i was saying it wasn't only that Petric and Olic can't play together, but also that Kranjcar was not moving from the half way line and getting up to support them. I think Kranjcar will play for a big club eventually. He did the right thing to move to Portsmouth at only 21 as there is a massive gulf between the Croatian league and the big teams you are mentioning. Croatian teams don't even play many midweek matches. In England they play every single midweek and then the weekend. It requires so much more fitness. Kranjcar arrived in poor condition in England and then improved his fitness and improved a lot as a player. Even Eduardo was really struggling with fitness demands, but his stamina and determination is better so he adapted quicker. Regards Tomasov i regard that like a Ante Rukavina situation who was hyped up at a small club and then did little. I don't think Dinamo has a problem scoring goals in HNL1. I think Balaban, Tadic, Mandzukic, Sokota, Sammir and Morales is more than enough to score goals in that league. Its in defence where we are rubbish. I don't even think we have a structured line up. We have left wingers at left back (Hrgovic, sometimes Etto). Right midfielders at right back (Mikic/Vrdoljak), central midfielders in defence (Biscan). Teams all over the place. We need to sign good centre backs. Why Schildenfeld left i have no idea as it wasn't in his interest and neither should Mikulic have gone. I think Babic would not have come in the summer. Babic needed the reality check which he has recieved now. He moved to Betis for money, has not played games and has a mediocre player in Mark Gonzalez selected above him. He probably wanted a bit more wages from Betis, but will probably join us now if we made a bid as whilst in Croatia he will recieve the attention of the national team coach and just like Ivan Leko and Miki Rapaic did and then once he played a season again he'll be able to transfer again. Going back to my original point Branko Strupar, Mark Viduka and Igor Tomassic also are Croatian but chose to play with other countries. Viduka particularly may have helped Prso if we managed to get him to play for Croatia over Australia. Don't get me wrong i liked Prso's endevour, but he was a bit of a freak Croatian player. There is not many Croatian players who liked the physical game like he did. I don't think you can say he was anything like Eduardo, Suker, Vlaovic and Boksic who all shirk at heading footballs. Prso was just this completely different Croatian player. I think he was good, but i don't think he can be compared with anyone cos he played a different type of game.
Also Ivica Vastic he is Croatian and played for Austria. When he scored that penalty so emphatically i am not sure that was just taken in the interests of Austria. A few days before he got a big applause from Croatian fans when he came on as sub and am sure he began thinking of Croatia when he scored and when he qualifed us with it.
Anonymous :
I dont understand what your trying to say about all the coatians that choose to play for croatia. Ya the other countries are pissed so what.Ya we could have lost them so, and one day we will. As for krunchie you helped me prove my point, you compared him to a player who was a bust in europe, had alot of skill, but was too slow for the modern game. Theres a reason why Riquilme is back in argentina, not in spain. But riquilme is even quicker than krunchie and gets more involved in the play. I gurantee you krunchie will never go to a big club. He plays soccer like they did in the 90's. Kaka,ronaldo, gerrard, sniedaer,nedved,deco,ballck,and etc are all players who play in big clubs, why: not only are they skilled the can move run play one two's they are MODERN PLAYERS Niko is not, why did are national team play it's best soccer when luka came in the mid. Bc he injected some pace to our team. Niko can't do that and never will. Bc since he was a kid he never trained and waited till he was 22 to start. Thats too late. And prso if you ever watched him play when he was healthy and in monaco, he didn't nearly run back to help the mid as he did when he played in the national team bc he didn't have too. He had players suppling him the ball and thats why he scored goals. And how is he a freak bc he has long hair. Prso even though was a short carrer gave his all always for the checkers. Shouldnt have even played in wc 06.If we didnt have him theres no way we play in euro 04. He wasent like olic when he ran he did something when he carried the ball usually something happend. As for dinamo they all suck and need too fix it.
Every Croatia player more or less has or had long hair, what you talking about. Oh yeah right please don't try to tell me Mr lightweight Luka Modric is any better defending that Kranjcar or that he's the reason for the improvement. Modric is a great player - technically no better than Kranjcar - but when he tries to tackle someone he's just bad at it. Thats why England walked through the midfield of our team. Aging Kovac, lightweight Modric and left winger Pranjic trying to defend is embarrassing. This is why Bilic went to 3-5-2 and replaced Modric with Vukojevic against Ukraine and sent Modric forward. The guys a chronic defensive player and was one of the reasons we lost to England. The only difference between Croatia beating England and losing is Eduardo and Kranjcar and a proper defender at left back to cover behind Niko and Modric. Also have you seen Modric shoot from distance sometimes its like he's wearing slippers. He's a great player with linking midfield and attack, but he's not THE reason Croatia are better. He's one reason, but Corluka, Eduardo, an improved Kranjcar and emergence of Rakitic and Vukojevic, playing 4-4-2and a younger squad might have something to do with it as well. Prso is a freak cos he is so physical. Did you ever see that guy play for Rangers. His attributes were strength, teamwork, perseverence and energy. His policy was he'll do everything he could to hit the target. Skill and precision was not much seen in his game though that's why he's different and i can't think of anyone even similar in playing style to him so is little point in comparing him to Suker, Boksic, Eduardo etc that's all. Prso was just good at what he does, but is retired now so whats the point in talking about him. He's got a European Cup final under his belt and a Scottish League winners medal so why does he need any more kudos. We're not gonna build a chapel for the guy.
Anonymous:
Good arguement last comment , im not trying to build a chapel for the guy, just saying he was a good player. As for modic, yes all those other players are good and contribute, but modric is the motor. Every game he is the one the usually starts things, And yes he is better defensivly, no he's not physical, but he gets back and covers and most importantly he's smart, always in the right position, thats what soccer is position and covering. The last three years how many times was modric back playing defensive midfield helping out the defence most of the time which, i rather not see.And when he gets the ball he makes a run in the middle of the park from breaking up a play. And against ukraine we played 4-5-1 not 3-5-2. And modric was our best player. I agree that against england we did not have the right line up as modric should have been pushed up and play with two defensive mid like vucko,and pokrivac, and pranjic should not play defense. But modric is a better footballer. As for krunchie,I think he's a national team player i just dont think, he should be an automatic first 11 every game, he hasent done enough to warrant that. He's been in the national team for almost five years know and two tournaments and has not done enough to have a guarentee place in the starting 11. He's simply over rated. For all his skill honestly ho much has he shown. He never breaks a tackle and makes a run. Really how often does he make something happen, rarely, besides scoring a lucky goal against england. And as for his play in england all his best games come against teams like, sunderland, bolton, bottom tier teams. And all those teams english players have shit for brains, all they do is run circles. I have yet to see him play well gainst man u, liverpool, the top teams. Why can't keep up.
i think our arguement is starting to get a bit long. We don't even have a proper arguement going here. Modric is good, Prso is good. I think Kranjcar is good, you think he is ordinary. Doesn't matter really. I agree Modric tracks back more than Niko, but sometimes you wander why he bothers as he does more harm than good in defence. Just like Pranjic when he tries to defend. Lets face it Modric really does need to track back more if he is gonna play central midfield. Also if we go back to 4-4-2 and Simunic goes back to left back then Kranjcar probably isn't going to have to defend as much, as Simunic won't be going forward much so they will both be holding there positions. Its getting up to support that Kranjcar needs to do. However if he doesn't perform we will just replace him with Rakitic or Pranjic, simple as that. Something tells me we are going to be 3-5-2 now though anyway as Pranjic needs to be wing back rather than left back. Srna can play as a wing back although its not his best position and we don't seem to trust one defensive midfielder on there own anymore especially if its Niko Kovac. We are also running out of centre backs. Robert Kovac is ready for retirement and at present even 33 year old Vejic is in the squad and he doesn't even have a club at the moment. I think we realised we only really have 3 first team defenders in the squad - Corluka, Krizanac and Simunic so we will be playing 3-5-2. Knezevic is constantly injured and not sure why Simic was out of last squad. As for Drpic not sure why he gets in in place of Simic.
Anonymous/Vlad
Wow! I don't know where to start. You two are like a couple tearing up the dance floor and everyone has formed a circle around you two staring in amazement. Yes, bad analogy, however, don't have anything better.
Just went through your multiple 1000 word comments and decided to post one after the dust has cleared.
Ok
As far as loss to England---- bottom line, Bilic was outcoached. Capello beat Germany in Germany with a second string England team fixed up in less than two weeks time. I love Bilic, he's done wonders for Croatia in such a short time, however, he had no answer for Capello.
My uncle in Croatia said, "most players with talent that aren't lightning fast don't like to run. The team needs to find someone to run for them...ala Gennaro Gattuso. Personally, I can't stand this guy. The most overrated player in the history of the game. However, this guy has heart and runs like a horse all game. He'll "stick it to you" if thats the only way. Krancar needs a Gattuso. Croatia needs a Gattuso. Niko Kovac was our Gattuso. Who will be our Gattuso?
As long as we don't have injuries, I'm not worried about defense. Worst case scenario, we can throw Pranjic back in defense.
We have a surplus in midfield (Rakitic, Srna, Kranjcar, Modric, Pokrivac, Leko, Vukojevic, Kovac, Pranjic.)
Also, Strikers,
Olic and Petric are always questionable, however, its all we got.
Cvitanich is from Ar-gen-tina, will get playing time now at Ajax, could see a call up.
Eduardo is coming off a career-ending injury. He will be back in the mix.
Klasnic? He scored an open goal goal, and a PK.... has the "killer" returned? Negative.
Mandukic/Kalinic? Too young, and Overrated. I hope I'm wrong of course.
Anonymous, Drpic was on the squad for one match. He's done. Political reasons I believe, which was also the reason, Craotia was the only country in the FIFA top 100 that didn't have a friendly last month.
Anonymous and Vlad, you receive the huhuhuhuhuhuhuge post of the month. Keep it up! good stuff.
Also, had to you know so much about domestic football. Here in LA, its very difficult to get any coverage on the HNL.
Lot's of satelite and internet. plus i go back almost every summer and get cought up, plus i dont live in La live up north in canada. I watch alot of setenta and gol tv. gol tv show alot of the german league so i can follow the croats in germany, and setenta show french and english premier league.
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