With that in mind, how do you keep your players motivated when you know the next season bears nothing new in terms of foreign exploits. People already started toying with ideas on how to compensate for this loss, which players should be sold, etc. But then, just a couple of hours ago, a word came in from UEFA headquarters that frankly, caught us all doomsayers by surprise. That’s right, we got our points back!

So where does that leave us? Well, we’ve still got a shot at going through, however unlikely our progress might seem. We need to win away at Anderlecht and then beat Timişoara at home (again empty ground, as the appealed only against the point deduction) on the last week of the group fixtures. Two in two, sounds simple enough. But that’s not all of course, as we’ll need Ajax to win or at least draw (depends on if we and how well we do in Belgium) against Anderlecht. It’s all theory but hey, it’s a fighting chance we’ll gladly take.

But. It wouldn’t be right if we didn’t (over)analyze the situation and give the hand that feeds us a long & menacing look. Looking at it from different perspective, you might say the damage is done. It’s all speculation, but you can’t deny Dinamo might have played a different match against Ajax in Maksimir if the players knew they were trailing 2 points, not 5, from the opponent on the night. Just as we can’t deny that Ajax have a better team and were by far the better team on the night either.

All I’m saying is that morale is a dangerous, often crucial substance. For those lacking faith in the system, one might wonder would UEFA give us our points back if Ajax and Anderlecht hadn’t practically sealed the top two spots in the group. This way it’s two birds with one stone. The bad guys are given a second chance but still get knocked out, while UEFA gets a little more richer in their pockets due to the hefty fine (75000€) they imposed along with today’s decision. Paranoid? Most likely, but hey, it’s something to ponder.

Yet, the most important paragraph in today’s deal wasn’t the fact we got our points back or that we managed to dodge further punishment. It turns out that there’s a line in today’s deal that says Dinamo must keep a clean record as far as crowd troubles go for, hold your breath, the next 3 years.

That’s right, three years of polite cheering, non violent and zero flare-throwing behavior. That’s three years of Bad Blue Boys going abroad, sipping ice-tea in a smoke-free cafeteria near the stadium, and then politely entering the premises while clapping hands and singing the Titanic theme. And that ladies and gentlemen, is science fiction (mixed with horror obviously). And UEFA knows that. They’ve stated that the next incident, should it occur, would result in Dinamo’s immediate disqualification from the ongoing competition. Sadly, tragically even, the question is not will it happen, but when. Prove me wrong Bad Blue Boys, heck, prove the rest of the world wrong.

Back to the match. Now the cynical part (a.k.a. large majority) of Dinamo’s fan base probably saw their hair turn more grey due to the fact that, yet again, Jurcic decided to play it safe. That’s in a (yet another) match we simply had to win. Marvelous. That aside, and I’ll be direct here, Dinamo sucks. Lately, we can’t score, we can’t create, we can’t defend. Yesterday’s match only confirmed this. And as if the obvious difference in attacking quality wasn’t enough, we went on to concede an early goal and have a player sent off relatively early in the match (Cufre got caught elbowing the opposition, though arguably a yellow might’ve been a more appropriate sanction). We did threaten a few times in the half, but it was mostly due to an inexperienced Ajax center back pairing, who went on and gifted our strikers (using plural to comfort myself here) with a few misplaced passes.

Ajax saw the more of possession, and had a clear idea on how to attack and continually threaten our goal. Deservedly, we conceded the second goal and went to halftime with two goals down and a player sent off. Frustrated Calello picked up a second yellow later on in second half (not the most convincing of cases either, but we can’t blame anyone but ourselves really), and it was only a handful of awesome Butina saves that kept Ajax from giving us a clear thumping as far as the score is concerned. Now reading all this, someone might get the impression that UEFA is doing its best to get us knocked out of Europe. But anyone who’s even remotely attached to this club will confirm that no outside help is needed on this, we’re doing a good job at knocking ourselves out. It takes years of practice though, so don’t think just any club is capable of this.

I believe there’s two kind’s of coaches. There’s those who learn on their (or even better someone else’s) mistakes, and there’s those who don’t. And it seems to me Krunoslav Jurcic is trying his best to fit in that latter group. How else could you explain the fact that time and time again he persistently makes the same mistakes while (and this is the tragic part) stubbornly refusing to question his own judgment, despite the results and team’s overall performance suffering. We’ve got central attacking midfielders (Sammir and Morales) playing wide while there’s obvious wide talent (Tomecak) waiting on the bench. We’ve got central midfielders (Vrdoljak for one) who’ve never heard of a thing called “short passing” or “keeping it simple”, and instead persist with futile attempts to dribble pass 3 players only to lose the ball and fail to track back. Bring Calello in, the kid is obviously tactically more adept. We’ve got players on crap form (Papadopoulos & Mandzukic) playing instead of players in at least decent form (Slepicka & Kramaric) rotting on the bench. Ladies and gentleman, we have a problem.

And I’m not gonna suggest that sacking Jurcic will fix this mess right up, cause it won’t. The roots go way deeper then that. But I don’t see Jurcic turning anything around here. I don’t see a pattern to our play (one that’s not s*** anyway), and I don’t see any kind of progress being made. But hell, it doesn’t matter what I see or don’t, does it? The call is on Zdravko Mamic, the alpha & omega of all that’s pretty & ugly at Dinamo today. And if for something, Mamic ain’t known for his patience.

As it stands, after causing “serious crowd disturbances” at Timişoara (the match we won 3:0), they’ve fined Dinamo with a 3 point deduction with the next 2 home matches to be played behind closed doors. Where exactly does that leave us? Well having won exactly 3 points in our first three matches, and now having those point stripped of of us, basic math tells us we’re now rooted to the bottom of the table with zero points. And basic reasoning tells us we’re effectively out of the competition. Yay.

The Bad Blue Boys? Well for the sake of reputation of the “old crew” of BBB and those among the today crowd who actually care for the club, I’ll separate them from those warmongers by naming the latter BBBB. That extra B is for “bastardizing” their colleagues and the name Dinamo throughout Europe. I’m positive the majority of BBB’s are not the troublemakers the media would have you believe, but the time for them to clean up their ranks is long overdue. The price of neglecting that problem is obvious. And while it’s expected that Dinamo officials will hand in a protest for the whole thing, it’s plain obvious that yet another European match will be played in the colorless atmosphere of the empty Maksimir ground. As for the points? Well seeing that our qualification without the “Timişoara points” is less then probable, there’s really only one thing we can do. It’s to get down on our knees and pray. So…

Miss UEFA? Can we have those points back? Please?

Kruno Jurcic, Dinamo’s coach, in the eve of the 2nd round draw basically said he’d settle for anything as long as it (the opponent) is close and not a relative unknown. Voilà, Dinamo drew Armenian champions, and Jurcic got the exact opposite of what he was hoping for. A couple of weeks later, Jurcic (along with pretty much every Dinamo fan out there) said it doesn’t matter who we’re drawn against, as long as it’s not Red Bull Salzburg. Bulls eye, cause the first pair draw out of the hat was, you’ve guessed it, Red Bull Salzburg – Dinamo Zagreb. So the conclusion is, either Jurcic gives us all the silent treatment, or goes public with exactly the opposite opinion of what he expects/is hoping for. Cause it’s clear that those UEFA balls ain’t exactly doing him/us any favors this year.

Back to Pyunik (Armenian word for Phoenix). Looking back through a period of few years, Dinamo has traditionally always been successful when seeded and playing versus teams coming from exotic countries. But, it was also always more tricky then expected as well. Same thing happened this year, as after a slightly disappointing 0:0 away draw at Armenia, Dinamo played what was pretty much the worst halftime ever played by the home team at Maksimir, well, ever. Unlike the first match, where Dinamo had shown some initiative and was clearly the side with more quality in its ranks, Pyunik came out in the return leg and looked like a side capable of producing an upset.

The guests looked more determined right from the start and Dinamo found no inspiration on how to match the unexpected level maturity which the Armenians were displaying. We looked like a chubby 12 year old gasping for air after failing to catch a ride with the school bus. In plain words, we sucked. Yet, with Pyunik coming close to scoring on several occasions, this chubby kid managed to open the scoring line with what was basically the first composed team move and eventually the only attempt at opposition’s goal in the first half. They say its a virtue of big teams to get good result even when they play like this. Well that’s bull, it’s karma and it all comes around sooner or later. I’d like to think that us drawing Salzburg is fate’s way of compensating us for riding luck in that dreadful first half.

But what of the second half? Well it had enough of “good” in it to leave us somewhat optimistic over our 3rd round chances. Jurcic’s team came out stronger and showed flashes of play which if produced on a more continuous base, can result in a solid European season for the club. Badelj and Lovren added to Mandzukic’s 1st half goal to make it a convincing 3:0 scoreline, convincing to those that didn’t watch the game anyway. Conclusion? Dinamo struggled again, Dinamo got through again. If last seasons are anything to go by, Dinamo will get better with each game and exponentionally better when playing against stronger teams, as that’s the way of things with the club from Maksimir.
Second leg highlights for those interested:

Oh and that domestic flavor. Well a few hours from now, the 2009/2010 season is about to start for Dinamo as they host last year’s second division champs Istra 1961. Here’s to hoping a nice victory will be a prelude to a fine result in midweek against Red Bull. Ajmo Dinamo!

As things stand, Dinamo’s holy ground doesn’t satisfy UEFA’s ground criteria for its competitions next season. Yes, that’s the one that starts this Tuesday (for Dinamo at least). Which translates into one of the following scenarios:

1) Dinamo either hires a magician who drops some magic dust on the ground and voilà: a new 40.000 all-seater pops out of nowhere.
2) Dinamo officials manage to bribe UEFA’s officials with a shipment of fine wine and quality meat, after which the latter are somehow convinced that some work is actually being done (I swear they actually just keep repainting the same wall every time an UEFA official comes along, and then *High Five* each other when the officials buy their story).
3) Dinamo plays its home matches somewhere in the neighborhood, on an eligible Croatian ground.

Though the third option sounds like the reasonable one, the odds are the second option will probably come out on top. Why? Well, for one, we’ve got wine, meat and paint in abundance. But to explore the third option a bit, the media have recently started toying with the idea of which of Croatia’s clubs could host Dinamo’s European exploits, and names like Varteks and Hajduk are apparently topping the list. Most interesting solution is of course Split, as however unlikely the situation, it’d be interesting to see how the fans of both clubs would react if the idea would come to pass. War? Love? Chaos? Riots? Giant mushrooms? You name it.

The pond:
HNL - abbreviation for Hrvatska Nogometna Liga (a.k.a. Croatian Football League). Established in 1991 after the dissolution of Yugoslav First League and operating under the so called Udruga Prvoligasa (League Association). That same League Association reports to a higher body, the HNS, or Hrvatski Nogometni Savez (Croatian Football Association). So basically its HNS who controls LA who controls HNL. I know, stay with me though.

If for anything, HNL should be primarily recognized for its inconsistency when it comes to league format. But to cut the long story short, in 2009/2010 we’ll see a league of 16, with 30 games in calendar for each of the participating clubs. I’ll also note that HNL is generally poor in quality, which has been best manifested through an abysmal performance by our clubs in Europe for the past..well lets just say its been a while. Also, for those unfamiliar with Croatian football, the HNL is traditionally modest when it comes to supplying players the Croatian national team, as quite a few of our NT players have never played professional football in Croatia. But that’s a problem deserving of its own thread, and I promise I’ll come around to it soon.

Big fishes:
Now since the HNL started, there have always been only 2 major sides involved. There’s your North with Dinamo Zagreb, and there’s your South with Hajduk Split.

The 2 mentioned clubs have shared 17 out of 18 Croatian First Division titles, with only NK Zagreb managing to dethrone the two on a single occasion. Out of the mentioned 17, Dinamo have won 11 and Hajduk 6 titles. These two have also hold the record in Croatian Cup wins, Dinamo with 10 and Hajduk with 4 titles respectively. So going simply by numbers, Dinamo and Hajduk have won 31 out of 36 possible Croatian titles (not counting the Super Cup here), which along with the rich tradition both of these clubs brought in from former Yugoslavia, pretty much explains the “tale of 2 clubs” situation we have in Croatian football.

Small fishes:
There’s NK Rijeka, with 2 Croatian Cup titles to its name and a traditionally strong home support. The league’s romantics are Varteks, who are known for their attacking minded football and for having an excellent youth program, often producing great talent but rarely managing to hold on to it. Then there’s NK Osijek, Croatian Cup winners in 1999, a club that has fallen into somewhat of a lethargic state recently, with its footballing potential yet to blossom. Also, Dinamo’s city rivals Zagreb are always a solid performer and of course the only club to have won the HNL title besides the Big Two. And at last we come to Slaven Belupo, a club whose continuity in recent times and solid shows in our otherwise monotonous European exploits deserve special praise.

Stars:
Well if we’re to believe the hype around them, Mario Mandzukic (Dinamo Zagreb), Nikola Kalinic (Hajduk Split) and Anas Sharbini (Rijeka) are the next batch of young stars trying to follow the footsteps of players like Eduardo and Modric, who have recently left HNL to take part in bigger & better things. Also note that all three are part of Bilic’s team for the upcoming qualifying matches.

…

While this is only scratching the surface, I’ll try and bring you guys up to date with further info on HNL before the league kicks off (though priority remains Dinamo of course) in late July. And with European cups qualifiers just around the corner, there will definitely be stories to tell, be they tragic or magic.
See you soon.

Moving on, Mario Mandzukic has been and probably will be the main talk of this summer’s mercato. The 23 year old has been doing his share of advertising, having been quoted on numerous occasions how he’s “won everything he could’ve won and feels it’s time for a new challenge”.

But his cries for freedom aside, there’s a bigger issue at hand here. For those of you unfamiliar with Dinamo’s habits on the transfer market, we have a bad habit of selling our finest players just before the season kicks off, only to replace those same players with relative unknowns but promising youngsters (mostly brought in from South America).

And this is a repeating pattern, one which usually ends up with us being knocked out of Europe early on and left wondering just what might’ve happened if we had held on to “that” one special player.

One year it was Eduardo, next year Modric, and this year it’s Mandzukic’s turn. While he’s obviously less influential then the former two, and his sale wouldn’t leave such a gap in our roster as was the case with Modric and Eduardo, what it would do is signal the intent to keep that irritating pattern alive & kicking. So it’s not really just a matter of selling a promising youngster to bigger and better things, it’s a matter of principle. Do we keep running in circles or do we finally stop retreating at the first sight of cashing in on our finest players. The line must be drawn here!

Okay a bit dramatic, but you get the picture. And as there have been quite a few firm indications that Dinamo has already lined up a “replacement” for Mandzukic, we should see this story unfold in a couple of days time.

The fact of the matter is while there were quite a few controversial calls (and most of these went against the visiting side, us), you could say we failed to response to force – with force. And for that we were punished, and consequentially got dethroned after no less then 3 and a half years of supremacy. But what has taken us 3 and a 1/2 years, our dear southern rivals managed to pull it of in just a month or two period, as they, almost literally, imploded. To cut the long story short, after the derby loss everyone predicted that the title race will eventually be prolonged and eventually Hajduk would host Dinamo in a title decider on the final week of the season. To our delight, that didn’t happen. They bottled it, we didn’t. Simple as that. And perhaps the biggest reason for us not “bottling it” lies in yet another controversial call by the Mamic brothers.

I mentioned earlier that Vlak was gonna be with us for only a short while, or to be more precise, on the 5th or March, after only a handful of matches, The Brothers decided to take a risk by bringing in a young but already promising coach, a former Dinamo and Croatian NT player Kruno Jurcic.

He too had a rough start, as despite picking up crucial points, the team looked tired and completely lacking in ideas going forward. But, somehow, somewhere, something clicked (lets call it a slight adjustment in formation) and Dinamo, after coming from behind to beat Cibalia 4:3 (down 2:0 with 15 minutes to go), showed they had the mentality to give this final sprint a real go. Players were confident, the atmosphere around the club finally picked up, and as soon as these 2 things had collided, points started pouring in Championship style. Such was our form that we had secured the title in early May, thus effectively changing the outlook of the so called “title decider” into a casual Sunday evening show, devoid of tension and passion the derby usually comes with.

Parallel with the championship race, the cup trophy was also up for grabs, as both Dinamo and Hajduk saw off their opponents with expected ease (Slaven Belupo might object this though). And riding high with self confidence after just nicking the 11th championship title, Dinamo players came out stronger in the first leg, defeating their fierce rivals with a convincing 3:0 victory. But, as they say, it’s not over till the fat lady sings, and it turns out this particular lady had no intention of displaying her lovely voice anytime soon.

As expected, Dinamo players came into the return leg with obvious attention to try and hold the hosts at 0:0 as long as possible, instead of coming out strong and scoring a goal that would kill the game off early on. And what we asked for, we definitely got, as despite the game being scoreless at half time, the hosts nicked a goal at the best possible time for them, adding another merely a minute later.

And so, having only now pressed the large red button indicating “panic”, Kruno Jurcic failed to mobilize Dinamo’s troops which were in, I’m guessing in 9 out 10 times, always gonna concede that 3d and overall equalizing goal. Concede we did, and the tie which looked pretty much over after the first 90 minutes, was now back at the beginning after the second 90 were up. Penalties were to decide. And while the home crowd was buzzing with excitement, and our players still unaware of the advantage they let had let slip, we somehow managed to find that extra cool and win the lottery that the penalty shootout really is.

Cruel on the hosts, poor on our behalf, but sweet as it gets in the end. The fat lady finally let loose her voice. And a sweet melody it was for Dinamo, as it signaled we could now raise our 3rd Croatian Cup in a row (10th overall), making it a third season in a row we had won the Double. Triple Double!

Now this is funny for at least to reasons :
1) Stimac actually has the highest rank in this system he now calls corrupted
2) Dinamo has, according to numerous analysis, been the last of the 12 clubs to gain any kind of use due to the refereeing blunders this season.

Now I’m not saying we don’t have our fair share of dirty laundry, quite the opposite, but to hear these accusations after coming from a recognized hoodlum (I’m flattering him) and from a position at which he’s at, that’s just the sourest of grapes.

If failure needs to be justified and blame tossed around, do the world a favor and point the finger somewhere else.

Not exactly exciting. But let’s get back to the present. So what changed? Well we sold practically everything we could, with what was the spine of the team in Modric, Vukojevic, Pokrivac, being replaced with a relative unknown but allegedly promising South American & Croatian combination.

All in all, and I’m being serious here, Dinamo parted ways (whether transferred out or terminated contract) with at least 14 players during the off-season. That’s right, 14 players, and many of whom (by my estimation at least eight) were regulars in the starting lineup. So what changed?

Well besides us emulating Wall-Mart (successfully I might add), it looked like we were in for a repeat of the last few seasons. Six wins out of six, and while we weren’t exactly leaving the crowd breathless with fancy football, we kept on winning.

That’s till our 14 times operated on & completely torn apart and then hastily patched up horse (stay with me) got tired and eventually slew down.

So how do you change your entire 1st team roster over night and go on to win a league by an impressive margin? You don’t. We learned this (hopefully) the hard way. A 2:2 draw away at Zagreb was a signal of things to come. While we did already have a solid advantage over the 2nd placed team (19 points out of possible 21), our form was deteriorating and the bubble was ready to burst, so to speak. And it did burst, at home in week 8, as our arch-rivals from Split took full advantage of our poor shape and came away with a fully deserved 2:0 victory (more painful with the fact that we lost this one at home).

What followed was nothing less unpleasant, as we lost away to Slaven Belupo with an identical 2:0 scoreline. So for a team that won the last 3 championships with ridiculous margin, grabbing just 1 point in 3 games was a sign that either we were slopping or the competition improved. Or the disheartening combination of the two. Yeah I think it was the latter.

Either way, in the period that followed we did indeed manage some consistency in our home performances, but our away form was a mess, as we seldom brought points back to Zagreb. Something had to be done obviously, and as these things happen the coach was the first one to take the fall. Instead of Branko Ivankovic (mr. 4-2-3-1, pictured), in stepped the crowd favorite and the 2nd in command to Ivankovic at the time, Marijan Vlak. And while Vlak did get through to some of the players, and it was manifested through somewhat better performances, this love was only gonna last to the next big derby that was to be played in Split in February. But seeing as I’ve written a painful looking wall of text here, I’ll go do some arranging and post the rest of the story separately.

Stay tuned.