From Balaban to Kalinic: Is There a Croatian Curse at Aston Villa?

March 30, 2019 – One of England’s finest clubs and some of Croatia’s best talent should be the perfect mix, but… 

Life is quite hard if you are an Aston Villa fan.

It didn’t always used to be that way. I fondly remember the 1980/81 campaign, when the lethal strikeforce of Peter Withe and Gary Shaw pipped Bobby Robson’s Ipswich Town to be league champions, and that fateful day in Rotterdam on May 26, 1982 when Withe’s shin was enough to defeat the mighty Bayern Munich and make Villa European champions. 

But since then… 

As with all other clubs, Villa started buying foreign talent, and there were arrivals from former Yugoslavia. First came the Serbs, and one of my favourite nicknames of all time, Savo Miss-A-Lot-Evic, as Partizan Belgrade striker Savo Milosevic signed on the dotted line for £3.5 million in 1995, before treating us to a 3-year masterclass in how not to score goals. His compatriot Sasa Curcic joined a year later and was an even bigger flop, soon leaving Villa Park for a failed career as a Serbian reality TV star and love guru. 

But it was the arrival of the first Croatian star which is best remembered by Villa fans and the Premier League as a whole. A star whose impact was so memorable that he features without fail on every list of worst signings in the history of the Premier League. 

I remember being really excited at the signing of Bosko Balaban in 2000. Croatia were the new hip team on the European scene, having finished third in the 1998 World Cup in France. And Villa had unearthed one of its finest talents!

Or so we all thought. 

Signed from NK Rijeka for £5.8 million on wages of £20,000, according to Wikipedia, “Balaban failed to find any form for Aston Villa, making just nine appearances, seven as a substitute, in two and a half years. He was loaned back to Dinamo Zagreb for the 2002–03 season, scoring 15 times in 24 appearances. In December 2003, Aston Villa released Balaban from his contract and he signed for Club Brugge on a free transfer.”

Where he went on to be a huge hit, as did Savo Miss-a-Lot-Evic elsewhere. The curse of Aston Villa.

One of Balaban’s few Villa appearances was actually in Croatia, as Villa went out of Europe in one of the worst performances in its history as Villa were knocked out by Varteks. As The Daily Telegraph notes of Balaban’s contribution in Varazdin in 2001:

“Juan Pablo Angel replaced the ineffective Bosko Balaban for the second half, in which Villa showed more urgency, forcing Varteks to defend for long periods.”

{YouTube screenshot – Lovre Kalinic displays excellent eyebrow control)

Years passed.

I moved to Croatia, even relocating to Varazdin, scene of Villa’s humiliation in 2001.

During my time in Dalmatia, I watched a very promising (and very tall) young Hajduk keeper called Lovre Kalinic. I was even there the day he set a new record for consecutive clean sheets in the Croatian league (17 from memory). And so when I heard rumours a year ago that Villa were trying to sign him from FC Ghent, where he had been named the goalkeeper of the year in the Belgian league, I was rather excited. Memories of Bosko and that dark night in Varazdin were banished to history. A Croatian hero was coming to rescue the Villa. 

Kalinic eventually did sign at the beginning of this year, for a fee of £7 million, a little more than we paid for the Bosko wonder all those years ago. 

And the goals went in, and continued going in. Far from being a stabilising addition, the already leaky defence seemed to get worse with the new arrival. After just a few games, he was dropped to the bench but not before this impressive face-off with leading scorer Tammy Abraham, see below.  

A Championship club with a £7 million goalkeeper on the bench. How much worse could it get? New number 1 Jed Steer took his opportunity well, keeping 4 clean sheets in his first 5 games. The international break should have given Kalinic some breathing space, but his performance as Croatian number 1 in the 2-1 defeat in Hungary brought on more criticism, this time from his fellow countrymen. 

The £7 million goalkeeper fell further down the pecking order on his return, not even making the bench as substitute goalkeeper in today’s 2-1 win over Blackburn Rovers. His place was taken by 21-year-old Montenegrin stopper Matija Sarkic. 

Has the Croatian curse struck again at Aston Villa? Or will Kalinic regain the keeper’s jersey and become the first Aston Villa Croatian legend? Time will tell. 

 

Subscribe to our newsletter

the fields marked with * are required

Email: *
First name:
Last name:
Gender:	Male Female
Country:
Birthday:	[DD] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 [MM] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [YYYY] 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Please don't insert text in the box below!