Croatian First Football League
Friday 13th September 2019
It’s been a while coming - just like this blog post really!
However, Stadion Maksimir is finally off my ‘bucket list’ and I’ve now seen my first game in Croatia (or Hrvatska in the nation’s owner mother tongue) to take my total number of countries visited to 24 across Europe.
Situated on the eastern edge of Zagreb, ‘Maksimir’ is the home ground of last year’s World Cup finalists. It's the place where an infamous bobble destroyed Paul Robinson’s England career after a Gary Neville back-pass and also where Atalanta, Shakhtar Donetsk and Manchester City will play in group stage games in the Champions League over the coming weeks.
The place has seen many memorable encounters over the years, though the 2019/20 instalment of Dinamo Zagreb versus Istra isn’t one which will live long in the memory for those of us that turned up to watch it.
The visitors shaded things in the opening 45 minutes; restricting Dinamo to speculative pot shots before squandering a clear-cut, golden opportunity to take the lead just before the break. Eventually, Zagreb pounced upon a defensive mistake shortly after the re-start, scored, and their lead was rarely under threat at any point thereafter. It was, in all honesty, a little bit boring!
Nevertheless, I’d been wanting to do this trip for a while and a £12 flight from Doncaster to Budapest followed by a €15 bus from the Hungarian capital to Zagreb made it perfectly possible. Luckily, the game was also brought forward a day because of Dinamo’s upcoming participation in the Champions League which meant I could get to another game on the Saturday. Happy days!
The stadium is about a 45 minute stroll from Zagreb’s main bus station and it was a pleasant enough walk. The ground is pretty strange, nevertheless, with four differently sized stands - none of which had a roof, and facilities being of a bog standard basic nature.
It reminded me ever so slightly, in some aspects, to Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa; albeit more run down, depressed and miserable, and further out of town.
Inside the ground, as well as the stands, it was a weird atmosphere with a sparse attendance - including what looked to be a couple of dozen hardy souls from Istra. The Zagreb ultras made plenty of noise and were at it throughout the game right up to and beyond the final whistle.
My match ticket was 30 kuna (approximately £4) yet oddly there were no snack bars/refreshment kiosks open. Whether this was because they were clearly being refurbished or because I was in the ultras section, who knows?
All in all, given there are better venues in Croatia in terms of facilities it’s no surprise that plans have already been drawn up to construct a brand new stadium and drag the Zagreb football experience into the 21st century alongside it’s neighbouring countries.
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