The Best Worst Season Ever

Dinamo Zagreb, Rijeka and Hajduk prepare for a three way dance for the title on the final day

Three way title fights are rare. The English Premier League, for example, has never had one go to the final day. La Liga last had it in 2015/16 then, before that, 1991/92. They aren’t a thing that comes around all that often in football.

And this season in the HNL, we have perhaps the single worst three-way title fight football has ever seen. One where the title will be won likely with 65 points over a 36 game season (1.81ppg) and could potentially be won with 62. The last champions to do so with such a low total were Dinamo in 09/10, when the league had six fewer games. In the 21/22 season, the title winning points total this term would see you fifth. In a ten team league.

Yet, one could never say that this title race hasn’t been gripping. One could never say it hasn’t had narrative bursting at the seams. Just none of it has been the way you’d expect as three deeply flawed sides stumble over each other to see who wins the biggest prize in Croatian football.

Arguably, the story of the season has been at Dinamo and the flaws of how the club’s direction has been changed as the season went on. After last season’s title win, they got back into their groove at the start of the season under Sergej Jakirovic and, with how they ended last term, few expected anything other than a comfortable title win for them. But a 1-0 loss to Hajduk followed by the 9-2 destruction on day one of the Champions League away to Bayern saw a summer of backing a manager who had won the board round after an iffy start to life at Maksimir thrown away. Sandro Perkovic’s first interim spell in charge saw arguably their most humiliating defeat of the season as Slaven Belupo ripped them apart 4-1 before the club brought Nenad Bjelica back to the club.

Bjelica’s time, however, was cursed. Bjelica was a manager whose tactical set-up worked in the Champions League but it was well worn in the HNL and, most problematically, was anathema to the expansive attacking football Jakirovic had built a side to be. So while Dinamo came closer than they really should have to qualifying out of the League Phase of the Champions League, their league season went into peril as a combination of rotations, injuries and fallings-out meant Bjelica had to work with a squad that was at the bare-bones of its depth and reliant upon running the one fit star they had - Martin Baturina - far beyond the point at which his effectiveness was overwhelmed by his lack of sharpness. The result was a five game winless streak in the run-up to the winter break that forced Dinamo’s hand not because they’d been embarrassed, but because to not change course would seriously imperil what was meant to be a relatively easy season domestically.

Enter, as replacement, Fabio Cannavaro. Cannavaro was the wrong man at the wrong time. Or just the wrong man in general. Having built his reputation in Asia playing relatively successful yet eye-bleedingly dull football, Cannavaro did better on the form book than Bjelica but lost a series of big results - Osijek knocking them out the cup before Rijeka destroyed them 4-0 in the performance of the season before the other most embarrassing result of the season - a 3-0 reverse to the tactically flexible, attractive Istra of Gonzalo Garcia. The last of those was a result Istra had threatened to pull off all season against Dinamo but lacked being clinical - all their ruthlessness came at once and it saw Cannavaro sacked.

Back in came Perkovic to hang around until the end of the season. At that point Dinamo were seven points back of Rijeka and six back from Hajduk. 13 points in six games has brought them level with Rijeka and two ahead of Hajduk which keen mathematicians will note means the other two haven’t been very good.

So, Hajduk.

Their flaws are obvious. In fact, it’s the same set of flaws they’ve had for multiple seasons with multiple managers attempting to fix them and not a single one succeeding - they are completely reliant on one player in Marko Livaja and they simply don’t know how to put teams away. Of their 16 wins this season, precisely three have been by more than one goal and, if you can’t get two goals ahead of a side, you’re always going to end up drawing a lot of games and Hajduk do draw a lot of games. For a side who enthusiastically ushered Ivan Perisic out of the door early in the season, there is little in the way of creativity to the point that Michele Sego, the outstanding player of the Autumn when at Varazdin, has been shacled and neutered at Hajduk after his move. They lack a proper natural right back so have to shove players across into it, Gattuso seems not to rate Rokas Pukstas which means they can lack physicality in the centre of the park and Anthony Kalik has gone in the space of a season from being not good enough to being the guy Gattuso relies on to plug any hole in the midfield or attacking areas because, if nothing else, Kalik can run. It’s also worth noting that Hajduk’s away record is just abysmal.

Where Dinamo’s flaws are in how what was a very capable squad was squandered, Hajduk’s flaw is that they aren’t a good side. Watching them isn’t an enjoyable experience for fan and neutral alike and, for the undoubted talent at the club like Livaja, Biuk, Rakitic, Durdov and Pukstas, the chemistry has simply never been there. They are an inert mass, yet one that, had they not gone on a six game streak without a win before beating Rijeka this past weekend, could and maybe should have broken one of world football’s greatest big club title droughts.

Which brings us to Rijeka. Rijeka’s flaw is obvious to the point you almost think it’s by design - they don’t have a striker - which complements their other flaw: they have PTSD from last season.

So, let’s jump back a season first of all. Rijeka were, for the first thirty-one games of the 23/24 season the best side in Croatia. Then everything fell apart as Stjepan Radeljic failed to jump in a wall to stop a Bruno Petkovic worldy of a free kick then Nedeljiko Labrovic suddenly decided to forget how to be a goalkeeper as they threw the title away to Dinamo.

Rijeka fans could probably be forgiven for thinking “Not again” when Radeljic gave away a penalty early vs Hajduk this past weekend to, for the second season in a row, have that one mental lapse that costs the side a title. Yet they remain in the best position possible to be champions - with the head-to-head tiebreak secured over Dinamo, if they beat Slaven Belupo on the final day, Rijeka are champions no matter what anyone else does.

(As an aside, it does have to be mentioned that Rijeka play Slaven Belupo in the second leg of the cup final - finely poised at 1-1 - after the final league game. After this year’s Bosnian Cup had integrity issues thrown at if after Sarajevo followed a 4-0 Cup win over Siroki Brijeg by rotating the entire squad but one for their following league game, against Siroki Brijeg, to lose it 1-0 to a team who needed the points to avoid relegation, it’s kind of difficult not to have that sort of nonsense at the back of your mind heading into a potentially similar yet far more impactful situation. Knowing the ever level-headed world of Croatian football, if Rijeka do win the league then Slaven with the cup and everything is absolutely above board, it will be viewed with suspicion of the most cynical kind. Slaven, for their part, also need the points to qualify for Europe via the league.)

This Rijeka side is not last season’s side. It is a pale imitation. Of the best attacking talents of last term, Marco Pasalic is in MLS, Pjaca is at Dinamo and Franjo Ivanovic is in Belgium. Fortunately, that leaves Toni Fruk.

If Rijeka win the title, Fruk is the man who won it almost single handed. Ten goals, ten assists while also learning a new position and having almost every other good attacker sold from around you is incredible and it would be a travesty were he not to be in a top five league at the start of next season because, after multiple seasons starring in the HNL, he is certainly at that level.

But, learning a new position, you ask? Well, after selling Ivanovic in the summer, Fruk has been deployed fairly regularly as a false nine. And he’s been as good at that as he was as part of the midfield. But Rijeka’s mid-season sale of Marco Pasalic and their failure to find an effective new striker seeing both Komnen Andric and Duje Cop fail in their auditions has meant that Rijeka’s attacking effectiveness is limited. On one hand, each and every midfielder they have is capable of, and does, chip in with the odd 25 yard thunderbolt. On the other hand, they don’t have many other ways of scoring past you.

It’s a hard, hard way to try to win a title yet win it they may and, in doing so, will bury the ghosts of last season when a far better generation fell to a far harsher fate.

It all comes to a close on Sunday.

Relegated Sibenik host Hajduk - for Hajduk to win the title, they must win and hope Dinamo draw at best and Rijeka lose.

Dinamo host Varazdin - for Dinamo to win the title, they must win and hope Rijeka don’t or draw and hope Rijeka lose and Hajduk don’t win. Varazdin, for what it’s worth, need a result to confirm themselves in fourth to have a chance of Europe depending on the Cup outcome.

Rijeka host Slaven Belupo - Rijeka must both match Dinamo’s result and/or draw to be assured of being champions.

This couldn’t be claimed to have been a vintage season. The champions will be sides short of quality in a season where, whatever Dinamo’s achievements in the Champions League, the domestic form highlights weaknesses not strength. Yet this mess of a season may give the grandest possible ending.

Who wins? Between three sides who all have big gaps in form at times and big reasons to rule them out, who knows.