The successor of Mario Cvitanović has worked as an assistant to Slaven Bilić in the Croatia national team and clubs over the last 10 years.
Nikola Jurčević is the new coach of Dinamo! The former Dinamo and Croatia national team player was named as the successor to Mario Cvitanović on Monday, reports Gol.hr on March 12, 2018.
After three defeats in 20 days, former Dinamo coach Cvitanović resigned after becoming the first coach in Dinamo’s history to lose to Lokomotiva. In search of a new coach, three names were considered, and in the competition with Jurčević was Dinamo's second team coach Igor Jovićević and the former Croatia national team coach Ante Čačić. The choice was finally given to Jurčević in hopes he'd help Dinamo regain their championship title after Rijeka stopped Dinamo’s consecutive 11 championship wins last year. Jurčević will also be asked, at a minimum, to secure the European League for Dinamo this year after Cvitanović fell to Albanian Skenderbeu and dropped out in the playoffs of the competition last summer.
For the first time in 13 years, Jurčević will be working as a coach for the first team.
Jurčević started his coaching career in 2002/2003. The first club he trained was NK Zagreb, followed by Dinamo Zagreb. In the 2003/2004 season, Jurčević won the Croatian Cup with Dinamo, securing the trophy thanks to an away goal against Varteks (in the first match in Varaždin, the game ended 1:1 and at Maksimir 0:0). At the beginning of that season, Jurčević won the Superkup with Dinamo, defeating Hajduk 4:1, only to lose at Poljud 1:0 a year later in the fight for the same trophy.
In that first mandate, Jurčević led Dinamo in 55 games, of which 36 were in the Croatian First League, eight in the Cup, two in the Superkup, and nine in Europe.
Jurčević also had short episodes in Salzburg and Slaven Belupo, and finally accepted the invitation of Slaven Bilić to assist the Croatia national team for six years.
After Euro 2012, Jurčević followed Bilić to Lokomotiv Moscow, then to Vienna and West Ham who fired the coaching staff four months ago.
Translated from Gol.hr
