July 19, 2019 - Not even 24 hours after Hajduk lost to Gzira United and dropped out of the Europa League in the first round, the club announced that its cooperation with coach Siniša Oreščanin has been terminated.
Oreščanin took over Hajduk at the end of November 2018 and led them to fourth place at the end of the season. His final game leading Hajduk was on Thursday at Poljud against the Maltese club Gzira United (1:3). Before taking over the Hajduk A team, he worked at Hajduk’s “Luka Kaliterna" Academy.
Hajduk thanks Oreščanin for everything he has done for the club and wishes him a lot of luck in his career.
The president of the club Marin Brbić, Vice President Luka Jakobušić, Benjamin Perasovic, President of the Supervisory Board, and Sports Director Saša Bjelanovic led the press conference on Friday afternoon, where they announced that a new coach would be named on Saturday at the team training. The media has speculated that it would be former Hajduk coach Damir Burić.
Hajduk president Marin Brbić and sports director Saša Bjelanović offered their resignation, though they were rejected.
"I have to apologize to all the Hajduk fans for this blow. I fully understand the anger of the fans. I am the most responsible person. I made a compromise and I'm aware that I made a mistake. Last night we did not want to make decisions. I made this mandate available to the Supervisory Board this morning. I wanted to say that. what I did with the coach I did not do well. NO has confidence in me again and because of these people, I have decided to continue the job, because I think we have moved in the right direction. We have started the process, we have a clear goal, which is entering the qualification for the Champions League. If we see that we cannot do this, we will leave the club. Everyone who does not want to go with us must go,” President Brbić said.
"I think the coach underestimated the opponent. We had a few starters on the bench. If we played with the first team, we’d win ten out of ten games. But we lost the most important one. Oreščanin was given a contract termination because of bad results. This is an opponent who was not equal. We had to win against them. We all think this is the toughest defeat in the history of the club. That defeat will mark us permanently. Both us and the trainers," he added.
More soon…
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