The Cup. A Croatian final – Hajduk vs Rijeka. No controversy and high drama. 1-1 after overtime. Aljosa Asanovic, not yet the famous star, gave the lead to Hajduk in the 43rd minute. From a penalty. Rijeka equalized in the 85th minute. Radmanovic scored for them. Penalties ruled the game at the end – the outcome had to be decided by penalty shoot-out, which was tough and went for quite a time until Hajduk extracted victory 9-8. All together 23 penalties – 1 in regular time and 22 in the shoot-out. Quite amazing.
Hajduk triumphed at the end and got the Cup.
Rijeka was particularly unfortunate to lose the final entirely on penalties, but that was their tough bad luck. Since they rarely won trophies, too bad they missed this one. The team was good… but nothing.
Dramatic and chancy victory for Hajduk, perhaps making the trophy even more enjoyable. Lucky, but fair win – so unlike the events in the championship.
Perhaps not very strong vintage, but Hajduk was never short on good players. Yet, this squad was not the one playing at the final – Gudelj, Vulic, Miljus, and Gracan were not among the winners. By the end of the 1986-87 Hajduk had new leaders – Asanovic, Robert Jarni. Gracan too. Josip Skoblar was coaching them, which was interesting too – the success of Rijeka in the previous years was closely related to his coaching the team. Now he was beating his former club, however minimally.
A Football Blog