HNL Round 25 Recap: Hajduk and Gorica Draw, Blowout Wins for Dinamo and Osijek
March 15, 2021 - The 25th round of the Croatian First League was held from March 12 to 14, 2021. This round saw Hajduk and Gorica draw, while Dinamo and Osijek recorded blowout victories against Varazdin and Sibenik.
Rijeka v. Slaven Belupo (1:1)
Rijeka and Slaven Belupo opened the 25th round on Friday, March 12, 2021, at Rujevica Stadium in Rijeka.
While the first half ended without goals, Andrijasevic gave Rijeka the lead in the 52nd minute, though van Bruggen scored the equalizer for Belupo with 15 minutes to go for the 1:1 result.
Rijeka is currently in 5th place with 33 points, while Belupo is in 7th with 23.
Lokomotiva v. Istra 1961 (0:1)
Lokomotiva and Istra met on Saturday, March 13, 2021, in Zagreb.
Navarro scored the only goal of the match in the 38th minute for 0:1 Istra. Simic scored from offside for Lokomotiva at the start of the second half which was called back thanks to VAR.
Lokomotiva is currently in the last place with 20 points, while Istra is in 8th with 23.
Gorica v. Hajduk (1:1)
Gorica and Hajduk met in Velika Gorica on Saturday, March 13, 2021.
Hajduk's Mujakic scored an own goal for Gorica in the 6th minute, giving the home team the early lead. Hajduk's Atanasov came back to equalize for Hajduk for 1:1 at the half. Neither team could score in the second half.
Gorica is currently in 3rd place with 48 points, while Hajduk has moved to 4th place with 33.
Varazdin v. Dinamo (0:5)
Varazdin and Dinamo met in Varazdin on Sunday, March 14, 2021.
Atiemwen opened the scoring spree for Dinamo with a goal in the 7th minute. Misic and Gavanovic followed with goals in the 16th and 24th minutes, making it 0:3 for Dinamo at the half.
Two goals by Orsic in the 70th and 78th minute made it 0:5, which was the final score of the game.
Varazdin is currently in 9th place with 22 points, while Dinamo is in first place with 57.
Sibenik v. Osijek (0:4)
Sibenik and Osijek closed out the 25th round on Sunday, March 14, 2021, in Sibenik.
Kleinheisler scored the first goal for Osijek in the 13th minute for 0:1. Mierez and Santini increased Osijek's lead at the start of the second half for 0:3 in the 49th minute. Erceg scored Osijek's last goal for the 0:4 final score.
Sibenik is currently in 6th place with 26 points, while Osijek is in 2nd with 55.
You can see the full HNL table HERE.
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No Olympic Games for Croatia Handball for First Time in 21 Years
March 15, 2021 - There will be no Olympic Games for Croatia handball in Tokyo this summer for the first time since 2000. With Portugal's win against France on Sunday, Croatia failed to qualify for the Games.
Croatia was left without the Olympic Games this summer in Tokyo after the qualifying tournament in Montpellier came to an end. This means that Croatia will not participate in the Olympic Games for the first time in the last 21 years. This last happened to Croatia in 2000 when they missed the Sydney Games.
Croatia, unfortunately, did not only rely on themselves to qualify for the Games. Even after beating Tunisia on Sunday, they had to wait for the result between France and Portugal.
The one scenario that would keep Croatia out of the Games unraveled and Portugal celebrated in a dramatic match against France with a score of 29:28. With this victory, France and Portugal qualify for the Olympic Games.
Croatia would have secured a spot in Tokyo with France's victory against Portugal and a draw. If France lost by up to seven points, Portugal and Croatia would have gone to the Games.
France will advance from qualifying group 2, Norway and Brazil from group 1, and Sweden and Germany from group 3.
Japan as the host, Denmark as the 2019 world champion, Spain as the current European champion, Egypt as the African champions, Argentina as the Pan-American champions, and Bahrain as the winner of the Asian qualifiers have already secured their place in Tokyo this summer.
The handball tournament groups at the Olympic Games in Tokyo are also known.
The four best national teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals of the Olympic Games.
Olympic Groups
Group 1: Denmark, Spain, Argentina, France, Sweden, Brazil
Group 2: Egypt, Bahrain, Japan, Portugal, Germany, Norway
Source: Index.hr
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Preparations for First Croatian WRC Under Way
ZAGREB, 14 March 2021 - Croatia Rally will take place on 22-25 April as the next round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) after Arctic Rally Finland, and Croatia will host for the first time the best rally drivers of today and become the 34th country in history to host a WRC race.
About 80 teams are expected at Croatia Rally. The route will include local roads around Plešivica, Žumberak, and Karlovac and Krapina-Zagorje counties, while the initial special stage will be in Zagreb, the organizers said.
Croatia is the third of the 12 rounds of the 2021 championship, and the 22 special stages are over 300 kilometers long. It is unknown whether spectators will be allowed to be there, and organizers are awaiting a response from competent institutions.
We are only 45 days away from Croatia Rally. We will use the time to determine the final details of the competition, said Daniel Šaškin, president of Croatia Rally organizing committee.
The results and standings after the first two rounds are very interesting. Finn Rovanpera is only 20 years old, the leading driver, which shows what talent he has. Interesting fights await us in all categories at Croatia Rally, and the 20th edition of Junior WRC also begins, he said.
Our rally is the first all-asphalt rally this season, so we will see how drivers will manage those conditions, Šaškin noted.
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Olympic Handball Qualifiers: Croatia Tops Tunisia 30:27 in Last Match
March 14, 2021 - Croatia tops Tunisia in their final Olympic qualifying match in Montpellier, France on Sunday, though they will not participate in the Olympics this summer as Portugal ultimately beat France.
Croatia and Tunisia met in Montpellier for the final game of the Olympic qualifiers on Sunday evening.
After a thrilling match and an incredible victory against Portugal, Hrvoje Horvat's Croatia played against an opponent who had very little chance of qualifying for Tokyo. Recall, France beat Tunisia 40:29 and Portugal 34:27. While a victory was necessary for Croatia to go to Tokyo, they do not depend only on themselves. In order to qualify for the Olympic Games, Croatia must beat Tunisia, and then wait for the outcome of the match between France and Portugal.
Croatia qualifies for Tokyo with France's victory against Portugal (then Portugal is eliminated). If Portugal wins, Croatia is out.
Croatia v. Tunisia Recap
Horvat scored for 1:0 in the 3rd minute to open the scoring for Croatia, and Musa scored for 2:0 seconds later.
By the 4th minute, Sego had 3 saves on three attacking plays.
Horvat scored from 7 meters for 3:1 in the 5th minute. Horvat scored again for 4:1 in the 8th minute.
Tunisia took the lead in the 12th minute for 4:5 and scored again for 4:6 in the 13th minute.
Pavlovic scored for 5:6 in the 14th minute. Cindric equalized for 6:6 in the 15th.
Horvat scored for 7:7 in the 16th. Tunisia led by 2 goals in the 19th - 7:9.
Horvat scored from 7 meters for 9:9 in the 21st minute.
Pesic saved Tunisia's 7-meter throw to keep the score even.
Mandic put Croatia back in the lead moments later for 10:9 in the 22nd. Maric scored for 11:9 two minutes later.
Mandic made it +3 with five minutes to go in the first half. Tunisia equalized at 12:12 with a minute to go in the first half. Maric scored for 13:12 with 20 seconds to go, and again for 14:13 to end the first half.
Horvat scored his 6th goal of the match for 15:13 to open the second half. Mandic made it +3 for 16:13 one minute later and 17:13, Croatia's biggest lead of the match, in the 33rd.
Horvat scored for 18:14 in the 35th and Mandic for 19:14 a minute later.
Duvnjak scored for 20:14 in the 37th for +6! Cindric made it 21:15 in the 39th and Mandic for 22:15.
Duvnjak scored for 23:17 in the 42nd minute and Mandic against for 24:17 with just over 15 minutes to go.
Cupic made it 25:18 with 12 to go. It was 27:20 with 9 minutes to go.
Pavlovic made it +4 with less than five minutes to go - 28:24, and Maric made it 29:25 with minutes left.
It was 30:25 for Croatia in the final two minutes.
The match ended at 30:27 for Croatia!
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KBC Zagreb Hospital First in Croatia to Introduce Immunoadsorption Method
ZAGREB, 14 March 2021 - On the occasion of World Kidney Day, observed on 11 March, a medical team from the KBC Zagreb hospital presented the immunoadsorption method allowing organ transplantation in patients in whom such a procedure would not be possible during the COVID-19 pandemic.
KBC Zagreb is the first hospital in Croatia to apply the immunoadsorption method to remove specific pathological antibodies in the process of transplantation while preserving the protective bodies in the patient's blood to protect them against infections. In that way, the patient is not exposed to the additional risk of infectious complications, the head of the hospital's Kidney Transplantation Department, Nikolina Bašić Jukić, told a press conference.
This method has enabled us to perform transplantation in two highly-sensitive patients and to save the life of a 30-year-old woman after lung transplantation because of chronic antibody-mediated rejection, she added.
The director of KBC Zagreb, Ante Ćorušić, said that immunoadsorption enables a better medical outcome in transplant patients at the time of the coronavirus pandemic. "This method is slightly more expensive but is much more effective. This is a great success not just for the Department of Nephrology but for the entire transplantation team, including urologists and cardiologists."
At this largest centre for kidney transplantation in Croatia, 43 patients received new kidneys last year. Ten such procedures have been performed this year, and only five patients remain on the waiting list.
The transplantation program was interrupted twice last year due to an escalation of the coronavirus pandemic, as a result of which fewer than average procedures were performed. The annual average ranges between 70 and 80 procedures, the head of the Department of Urology, Željko Kaštelan, said.
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Bol Tourist Board Awarded at ITB Berlin
ZAGREB, 14 March 2021 - The tourist board of Bol, a town on the island of Brač, has won an award at the ITB Berlin International Tourism Fair for the "Windsurfing" video, the board said on Sunday, adding that its "Our Stories from Bol" campaign won third place.
The video was awarded in the "Cities" category as part of the Golden City Gate 2021 Tourism Film Print Multimedia Competition, in which 23 countries participated.
The evaluation criteria included clarity of the message that is being communicated, creativity, innovation, message authenticity and if the video encourages viewers to visit the destination.
In "Windsurfing", the oldest and youngest surfers in Bol, Tomaž Garbajs and Ian Anić respectively, acquaint viewers with one of the world's most beautiful beaches, Zlatni Rat, and the art of surfing, inviting them to feel the pleasure of chasing waves.
The "Our Stories from Bol" campaign recently won the Golden Interstas Award at the ITF 'CRO' 2020 International Tourfilm Festival.
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Croatia Logs 561 New Coronavirus Cases, 7 COVID Deaths
ZAGREB, 14 March 2021 - In the past 24 hours 561 new coronavirus cases and seven COVID-19 deaths have been registered in Croatia, the national COVID response team said on Sunday.
There are currently 4,804 active cases, including 855 hospitalised patients, of whom 72 are on ventilators, and 18,511 people are self-isolating.
Croatia has registered 251,045 coronavirus cases to date, 5,677 COVID deaths and 240,564 recoveries, including 542 in the past 24 hours.
To date 1,428,779 people have been tested for the virus, including 6,221 in the past 24 hours.
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Expert Says: No Link Between Death of 91-year-old Woman and Vaccination
ZAGREB, 13 March 2021 - The head of Croatia's Agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Services (HALMED), Siniša Tomić, said on Saturday that according to preliminary data he did not believe that there was a connection between the death of a 91-year-old woman and her inoculation with AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID.
The HALMED regulator and the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ) are supposed to adopt their joint conclusion on this matter next week; he told the national broadcaster HTV on Saturday evening.
HALMED is looking into a 7 March report of a fatal pulmonary embolism in the 91-year-old woman three days after receiving a shot of AstraZeneca.
According to Tomić, this case will also be on the agenda of the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Tomić said that to date, 14 reports had been submitted in Croatia about side effects with death outcome after inoculations against coronavirus. In nine cases, the reports were sent after the inoculation with the Pfizer vaccine and in five with AstraZeneca.
In six cases, it has been ruled out that the death might be associated with inoculation. In two cases, this relationship does not seem probable, and in another six cases, the authorities are waiting for more supporting documents.
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Eastern Croatian City Boasts Baby Boom
ZAGREB, 13 March 2021- During 2020, Vinkovci had 289 newborn babies, or 32 more than in 2019, the mayor of this eastern Croatian city, Ivan Bosančić told Hina recently.
This rise of 11% ranks Vinkovci on the second place after Osijek in terms of the growth in births in 2020, said the mayor, ascribing those developments to the local authorities' population policy.
In the last four years, the city administration has allocated HRK 1.9 million for baby support grants.
Also, HRK 40.4 million has been set aside to co-fund pre-school institutions, 4.8 million kuna has been invested in providing equal social conditions, and HRK 7.2 million for scholarships.
Bosančić of the HDZ party notes that currently 321 students receive city scholarships, or twice as many as in 2017.
Since 2017, 13 playground facilities have been built or rebuilt and some other sports utilities have been upgraded in this eastern city.
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Only Two Countries Worse Than Croatia in Terms of EU Vaccine Share
March the 14th, 2021 - From being one of the best countries in the entire world when it came to handling the coronavirus pandemic to one of the worst and almost back again, it has been a rollercoaster ride for Croatia as the spread of the novel coronavirus and its accompanying variants continues. Despite the much talked about vaccine finally being here, things are not going smoothly in a deeply embarrassing twist for the EU, and the EU vaccine share is leaving Croatia in the lurch.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Republic of Croatia is one of the biggest losers when it comes to the distribution of vaccines within the European Union, ie it is one of the countries that are most deprived of the delivered doses of vaccines in relation to the number of inhabitants, with only Latvia and Bulgaria being worse off than us.
The calculations of well-informed EU officials, who for obvious reasons wished to remain anonymous, show that Croatia would be deprived of almost 150,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine in such a distribution, and the real result of that deep inequality will be seen only in the second quarter, Vecernji list reported. At the same time, some countries are profiting greatly from these strange calculations of doses and arrangements within the Vaccination Steering Committee, a body set up by the European Commission (EC) to help them.
Although EU member states have agreed that the distribution of vaccines is key, in terms of population, which is only fair and correct, the data shows that this principle is not being respected in reality. Croatia, whose population accounts for 0.91 percent of the EU's total population, had received 394,170 doses by March the 9th, which represents a negative trend even at that early stage of the EU vaccine share/rollout.
The delivery rate for each EU country in relation to the number of inhabitants shows that Croatia would be in the red by as much as 27 percent, which - translated into a vaccine - would mean 148,522 doses less than it deserves, according to data collected by EU officials which Vecernji was privy to.
The worst of all is Latvia with a negative rate of 62 percent and a deficit of 158,946 doses, Bulgaria with a minus of 59 percent and less than 545,281 doses, followed by Croatia. At the top of the scale in terms of the EU vaccine share, among the winners, is Malta, which is in the ¨plus¨ with an enviable rate of 155 percent, Germany with 11 percent and Denmark with 10 percent.
The problem of unequal treatment and deviation from the agreement was warned of recently by no less than Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who pointed a finger directly at the Vaccine Steering Committee, boldly and openly calling it "a bazaar where vaccines are traded."
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