Following the 4:0 win over Inter Zapresic in MAXtv First League, first team got one day off (Sunday) and from Monday they have returned to their regular activities.
Coach Damir Buric decided to reward the team by giving them a short break, they deserved it because the main goal was fulfilled. Hajduk got back to winning ways.
Since the first half of the season is in its final stage, it was right on time to show true team character and Hajduk did that in the match against Inter. Their performance was convincing, brave and efficient, overall dominant and creative.
This week, first team is having double training sessions every day and the focus is set on the important upcoming matches.
All three upcoming matches are taking place in Zagreb, the first two against Zagreb in Kranjceviceva (November 28th - Saturday and December 02nd - Wednesday). Namely, Hajduk plays away League match against Zagreb and then Cup quarter finals (one match only) against the same team. The final and most important match in Zagreb is the Croatian derby against Dinamo, on December 05th (Saturday) at Maksimir stadium.
In average, young Hajduk team is 22 years old, thus being the youngest First League team in Europe. Hajduk currently has 32 points, being only one point behind Dinamo and three behind the leader Rijeka, with the exact same number of victories as these two rivals (nine victories).
Taking into account the age and potential of the team that the coach Damir Buric took over last summer, there are lots of reasons for optimism.
The last victory means a lot to the players and helps them return self - confidence, especially as it was a dominant victory with four goals scored and many more chances to score. The upcoming period is therefore crucial as each game can decide about the leader at the end of the first half of the season. The team is ready for it but they are only focusing on the next match.
Statistically, there are a lot of interesting facts about the team in this football season.
Even though Hajduk possibly lacks real striker - top scorer is Mijo Caktas who scored 12 goals (5 in the championship) - everybody scores in this team. Diversity is one of their key advantages.
As many as 15 first team players scored this season. Apart from Caktas, the second - highest scorer is Tino Sven Susic (6 goals), followed by Balic, Maglica and Ohandza who scored 4 goals each and Maloku (3 goals), while there is a group of players who scored two goals.
Nikola Vlasic belongs to a group of those who scored two goals, he collected 61 caps for Hajduk's first team and this season Nikola is a standout by the number of assists (9), followed by Fran Tudor (7 assists), Milic, Ohandza etc.
This season, the most capped players are two Croatian national team players Lovre Kalinic (100 caps for Hajduk, 25 in this season) and Goran Milovic (26 caps, only one missed game).
They are followed by Jefferson, Tudor and Vlasic.
Milovic played a total of 2331 minutes, Kalinic played 2250 minutes and Vlasic 2122 minutes.
