Hajduk recorded yet another win in the 13th round of the Croatian National Football League on Sunday October 18th in Koprivnica against Slaven Belupo. It might have been a minimal win of 0-1, but this game will certainly be recorded in the club’s very long and proud history because of the fantastic achievement by their goal keeper Lovre Kalinić.
Referee’s final whistle marked the 721th minute of Kalinić not conceding a goal which is an absolute record in Hajduk’s history. He bettered the record set by Zoran Slavica (711 minutes) set back in 1992. And we must not forget that Slavica achieved his record in two separate periods within the same season, and Lovre Kalinić has 721 consecutive minutes played.
Now, back to the game. It seems Hajduk is finally finding its rhythm and the players are beginning to execute the vision of coach Burić sine this is a very different team than the one we were watching at the beginning of the season and of course during that much mentioned game in the Europa League qualifiers against Slovan Liberec back in August. Team is much more aggressive, they possess good control of the ball and it will be interesting to see how they develop as the season progresses especially if we know that the team is comprised of very young players and without any “stars” to put it mildly.
Tonight they played on a pitch that was anything but well kept, half of the team was indisposed due to injuries and illnesses but everyone was up to the challenge and executed coach Burić’s ideas perfectly. Well, almost perfectly, considering Caktaš got sent of in additional time with a red card. Now lets just hope they can keep it up, and maybe Kalinić can keep his goal safe for few more games, just to make it more difficult for his successors to break his record.
