Dinamo’s two wins in three games against Hajduk this season, both in Split. Such was the performance so far, and now the desire of the people of Zagreb is to cheer up the blue fans at the Maksimir stadium as well.
With such a mission, Dinamo’s football players will jump into Saturday’s game in which they will at 4 p.m to meet Hajduk in the 34th round of SuperSport HNL. Their Maksimir duel in the autumn part of the competition ended in a draw, 1:1, and the Blues will certainly try to garnish a great season with a home victory in the derby, in which they already secured the 26th championship title in the HNL.
The situation in the team is good, especially after we secured the championship title and brought him back to Zagreb. The boys trained well. We have a little problem with injuries, but well… Scott McKenna trained on Thursday and Friday and will be in competition for the team, but we will see how much we will use him. Everyone else is fine. We know that Sergi Dominguez will be absent due to four yellow cards. Young Marko Zebić? He is also competing for the squad. We are all looking forward to the game togethercoach Mario Kovačević pointed out.
Will this be a game with less pressure given that Dinamo have already secured the league title?
When you see that it will fans fill the stadiumthen it is clear to you that there are no easy games, especially against Hajduk. We are glad, of course, that we have secured the title and that this match does not decide the placement, but we will go for the win from the first minute, that is the only thing that interests us. After all, we haven’t beaten Hajduk in Zagreb for a long time. From the first minute we will start as well and as hard as possible to cheer up our fans.
Until the end of the season, there are still three league games left and the Cup final against Rijeka on May 13 in Osijek. Will it also be a kind of test for players who have played less in previous matches?
Immediately after the derby comes the final of the Cup, of course that game also means a lot to us. After that, those who have played less will get more opportunities. Every game is a demonstrationespecially for those who did not have much time. Now our focus is on the derby against Hajduk, that is the team that was our only competitor in the fight for the title.
Is this derby also a kind of opportunity for the players to stay in competitive rhythm before the Cup final?
Naturally, that is also very important to us. The boys are in good shapeand we had enough time to prepare to be real against Rijeka.
What kind of Hajduk do you expect on Saturday?
I don’t go into it too much, we mostly look at ourselves. We know they have quality, there are Marko Livaja, Ante Rebić, Michele Šego… You have to appreciate them. Livaja was the league’s best scorer in recent years, we know what kind of career Rebić has had. They are of good quality, especially towards the front. But we beat them twice this season. We are playing on our home field, but we know that we must not relax, we must be at our 100 percent. Our style of play is such that from the first minute we want to press and look for victory as soon as possible. But we have to be careful, watch out for their best players, coach Kovačević concluded.
(www.jabuka.tv | Photo: GNK Dinamo)
