The year 2020 will be remembered in history as the year that stopped the life we knew until then for a few months. We confidently thought that there are no alternatives for most of the everyday things we do, and that the adopted patterns of behavior are the only ones, well-trodden and untouched.
However, a reason visible only under a microscope was enough to show how wrong we are, disrupt the functioning of the entire world, shake the world order, and limit people’s contacts to such an extent that every household member who took a few steps outside the recommended movement zone was looked at with suspicion and fear.
Just before it will some bat from China put the world under lock and key and postpone all activities, including football ones, Sergej Jakirovic he is visiting Poljud with his Gorica, and probably at that moment he would agree to any “apocalyptic” event that would break the mood Tudor troops in “torpedoing” the Gorica goal.
Sergej Jakirović on the bench of Gorica (2018 – 2020)
Unfortunately for Jakirović, the world stopped a few days after the referee’s final whistle in Poljud, and his Gorica badly defeated from Hajduk with 6:0, which marked the end of him on the bench of the Turopolska first league team.
Maribor and the second consecutive dismissal
The world started moving again at a snail’s pace after the “reset”, and football events went hand in hand with it. Thus, Jakirović was not in “isolation” from engagement for a long time either. Slovenian Maribor he was losing a step in the race for the title with Olympia, the then coach Zlatko Zahovič could not turn the season around, and the people of Maribor are forced break decided to use it to shake up the team and saw Sergej Jakirović as the ideal candidate for that.
this one not afraid of challengestakes over seven points behind Olimpia and ends the season in second place with the same number of points as the rival from the capital, but with two points behind furious Celje which from the second plan wins the championship.
With the results achieved in the post-virus period, Sergej Jakirović gained the trust of the management to lead Maribor into the new season.
However, he did not stay long. Thanks to the specific system of playing the qualifications due to the pandemic, where only one match was played, with “Ljubičica” falls out already in the first qualifying round for the Europa League from the semi-amateur club Coleraine from Northern Ireland on penalties. That’s how Jakirović became in just five months “drunk” and the second dismissalwhich definitely affected his reputation as a promising coach and he had to start from scratch.
The importance of second chances
For a new beginning, Jakirović chooses (or she chooses him) Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A league where coaches last less than a child’s interest in a new toy has gotten its hands on another one coaching puppet which she would use once until the next opportunity.
Adding at the same time the glow of the bench of the club he took over, everything led to the fact that the popular “Professor” would not stay in BiH for long. football.
Sergej Jakirović on the Zrinjski bench (2020 – 2022)
After becoming the eleventh coach of Zrinjski for the past eight seasons, he had one primary task: take the club to Europein which he failed.
And when everyone in Mostar was already preparing for a new strategist on the bench, Danko Šulenta shocks the domestic football public and provides Jakirović with a new opportunity, which will turn out to be one of the best moves in Zrinjski’s sports policy ever, and Sergej Jakirović is unknowingly preparing his launch into the world football orbit.
Living the dream of every coach from this area to get a free hand in the selection of staff for the next season, he got rid of the fed-up senators and refreshed the locker room with young players eager to prove themselves who, along with the motive, also had the quality for the best results.
His Zrinjski became holder of many records in Bosnian football, and in addition to winning the title, he was close to qualifying for the Conference League, which he was prevented from doing s(p)ret scissors Slovan’s Eric Ramirez, which took the two-match play off for this competition to penalties, and once again in Jakirović’s career, they proved to be fatal for the club he leads.
Mostar’s “bluff” and Rijeka’s “flirt”
All these successes did not go unnoticed. It’s been this one for months a native of Mostar successfully “flirted” with Rijeka through the media, defending that he was under contract with Zrinjski, but it was clear to everyone that December 2022 would bring the end of this perfect “Mostar” relationship.
Jakirović knew put your communication skills to good use satisfying at the same time the possessive Mostar audience and raising his own price, so his departure from Zrinjski has remained one of the most peaceful departures of a coach from Mostar to this day, if except for the “boiler” affair on the road to Leotar in Trebinje, which after provocations from the ranks of the home team led to general fights of football players and coaches Leotar and Zrinjski in front of the locker room, in which Sergej Jakirović also participated, in self-defense and protection, as he claimed.
>> Read also: Zrinjski’s coach also took part in the fight after the game
And it all started from hot water shut-off to guests from Mostar…
Let’s go back to football.
Riječane takes over the eighth place in the HNL rankings at moments when Kvarner is the only thought how to stay in the company of the best.
Applying the recipe from Mostar, it works again great ventilation of the dressing room and with Rijeka, at the end of the season, he reached fourth place and qualified for the Conference League next year.
Sergej Jakirović on the Rijeka bench (2022 – 2023) (Photo: HNK Rijeka)
But, that there is so little between love and hate, he will feel it best in August 2023 choosing the path of ambition over the path of worship. Like a bolt from the blue, just three days before the game of the summer against the French Premier League LilleJakirović leaves Rijeka for Dinamo Zagreb. For months, the Croatian sports public debated about morals and ethicscode and collegiality. There were threats to the woman, children and family.
The whole story became the number one topic in the country, and it showed Jakirović the hard way how much courage and steadfastness is needed in standing behind his decisions.
Be careful what you wish for, maybe it will come true
According to the old “be careful what you wish for, it might come true” Dinamo bench quickly escalated from the fulfillment of a dream into Jakirović’s “curse” which he had to wear.
The team that does not forgive defeats and is not satisfied only with victories but also with the impression that follows them seemed like a ruthless “coach-eater” who will soon chew up and spit out another coach, but tough and with a hundred lives was Sergej Jakirović together with his staff, from which he does not deviate throughout his coaching career.
Sergej Jakirović on the Dinamo bench (2023 – 2024) / Photo: Marko Lukunic/Pixsell
Although at the end of January 2024, after the home defeat against Lokomotiv (0:3), it seemed that a change on Dinamo’s bench was only a matter of time, especially because that game, the first after the winter break, was supposed to mark the beginning of the winning waves on which the “Blue Ship” would sail to Hajduk and knock it off the top of the rankings, Vlatka Perasthe then president of the Dinamo board, makes a “Sulent” move and offers Jakirović another chance despite all football practices.
And as it was in Zrinjski, so it was in Dinamo.
Jakirović turns another hopeless situation into record-breaking success.
Fifteen wins from eighteen rounds, with only three draws, was enough to leave the first competitors Rijeka and Hajduk eight and fourteen points behind at the end of the season, and to all that they won the Cup in which they defeated both.
Later, Jakirović will his Dinamo introduce into the Champions Leagueand he will be judged by a convincing defeat against Bayern (9:2) which, one might say, “finally” cost him his job at Dinamo. That scenario was written for him after the relegation from Sparta Prague in the qualification for the European League, after the defeat in the Conference League against Pilsen and Balkani, then also after the already mentioned defeat against Lokomotiv, as well as after the Greek “tragedy” in Thessaloniki and the defeat against Paok (5:1).
Through regional mud to Wembley hybrid
That the path to success is thorny and difficult is shown by this stage of Jakirović’s coaching in which, as a relatively young coach, he went through situations that even coaches with a few gray hairs would not be ashamed of.
He already has success in the palm of his hand, in the north-east of England in the Yorkshire region, while he waits with his Hull the most expensive football match in the world: the playoff final to enter the English Premier League, where victory brings more than 200 million pounds.
Jakirović continues to excel in Turkey
After a successful operation to save the Turkish first league club Kayseri from relegation, Jakirović took over “Tigers” in the summer of last year, at a time when the club was still catching air after they remained part of the English “Championship” thanks to goal difference.
The aggravating circumstance was that Hull was punished with a ban on bringing in players during the three transfer periods due to financial irregularities.
All that classified them as prospects relegation candidatesand Jakirović was given the obligation to save them from that scenario.
Exactly nine months later, it lies in its infancy one of the most beautiful stories of English footballand on Saturday – when at the epic Wembley Jakirović will lead Hull into the fight for entry into the strongest league in the world – we will find out if they will manage to grow into something bigger.
Photo: Hull City
The opponent is, one would say, a perfect match, although before the start of the season, even the most loyal fans could not believe it.
No matter how Saturday’s match against Middlesbrough ended, Sergej Jakirović did a huge success and knocks on the doors of the biggest European clubs and leagues. At a time when the coaching job in many ways goes beyond just the job on the field, Jakirović showed exceptional ability to cope and adapting to various situations, without losing the principles of his coaching philosophy.
With faith and dedication to work, the assistants he has worked with over the years and good communication skills both with the media and the players, the playoff final itself can be considered the crown of his coaching career so far, and entering the English Premier League will only be an upgrade and confirmation of proven quality.
And after that, who knows how things will go maybe Herzegovina gets its first coach whose name will resound loudly in world football.
(www.jabuka.tv | DK)
