It was a busy sport week in Croatia, football was the hottest topic, as The Eternal derby was played twice during the week
The first news that hit the headlines was the leaking of the new kit for Croatian national football team on March 15.2016, a perfect introduction to a football week that was starting as Dinamo was visiting Split to play its fierce rival Hajduk twice in a few days. First, it was time for the Cup semi-finals, Rijeka got less than expected in the first match played.
Not only football was to be played, as ABA League play-off semi’s were scheduled, Cedevita was in Belgrade and lost the first match. Bojan Bogdanović helped to improve the mood of Croatian basketball lovers, as he tied Dražen Petrović’s record high – scoring game in the NBA.
On Wednesday, everything was set for the first match between Hajduk and Dinamo, and tensions were sky – high, as everything but the sport was in the mind of some of the participants. Insults were thrown around from all directions, only Hajduk’s coach, Mr. Burić was the one to avoid any talk that did not have anything to do with the game itself. As we were complimenting him for that, news broke that Zdravko Mamić, incriminated Dinamo boss will be on the bench for the game. It was just a hoax but has done yet more damage to the pre – match atmosphere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLJE5zIVjvA
There was something rotten in the air, but it all ended with an easy Dinamo win and was a huge disappointment for Hajduk fans. To get away from the bad taste Dinamo and Hajduk introductions of the game left us with, we introduced the youth tournament to be played in Fažana later this year.
We were resting from football as Marin Čilić went on to the quarter-finals of Indian Wells ATP tournament, and was stopped there by David Goffin once again, and we had one story about some great amateur sportsmen and women staging the powerlifting tournament in Trogir.
Ivan Bebek, nominally the best Croatian referee ensured to get us back to football, unfortunately, as he raised rage in Turkey with his mistakes while directing Europa League match between Sporting Braga and Fenerbahce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evE5djUVogA
The weekend started in celebrations, as Croatian shot-putter Filip Mihaljević won a bronze medal in IAAF Indoors World Championship. It was also the weekend for PPD Zagreb to play Handball Champions League playoff game, which they lost. It was also time for regional water polo league finals, with two Croatian teams in the finals, Jug and Primorje, and Jug got to the title finally.
It all ended on Sunday with yet another match between Hajduk and Dinamo, it was expected Dinamo will win the game easily, but Hajduk’s coach and players had a different plan, as they had some special pre-game preparations. They won the match, cooking up things on the top of the CFL table, at least for the time being.
