Niko Sigur

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, narduch said:

Bayern just beat Bremen 5-0 as well. Maybe they are just in an unreal run of form.

But ya. The Croatian league isn't one you stay in too long for a young player with upside.

I'm thinking Dani Olmo left Barça for Dynamo Zagreb at the age of 16, which was very unusual. But clearly the development there is very good, the top teams produce great players with a strong balance of technique, physicality, football IQ. My question, as yours, is how long you should be there. The top teams are not as strong as the top two in Serbia, for example, so you might want your move earlier, also for the financials, whereas in other leagues that may not be a lot better, the top sides are able to pay more and you could stay longer (Greece, Serbia, Scotland).

[AnonymousInsider]

9 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I'm thinking Dani Olmo left Barça for Dynamo Zagreb at the age of 16, which was very unusual. But clearly the development there is very good, the top teams produce great players with a strong balance of technique, physicality, football IQ. My question, as yours, is how long you should be there. The top teams are not as strong as the top two in Serbia, for example, so you might want your move earlier, also for the financials, whereas in other leagues that may not be a lot better, the top sides are able to pay more and you could stay longer (Greece, Serbia, Scotland).

I spoke to one of my Balkan friends after the thrashing of Dinamo. He said the Dinamo coach had a nightmare tactically and changed the whole strategy for Bayern. He got fired after the game, in his opinion deservedly. Croatian league has 3 good teams right now, and Dinamo might not be the strongest this year. He told me Hajduk is probably in line to dethrone Dinamo this year. I asked about Serbia as well, he told me it’s similar to the Croatian league, but Red Star does heavy lifting for their coefficient and they pick up all the talent because their budget is so much bigger than everyone else’s. Said Red Star is better than all Croatian teams. I asked about MLS and how it compares, he said top 3 would be above average to contenders, rest would be towards the bottom. He said a starter from those 3 would usually be good enough for Canada (lives in Canada by the way) but the rest would need to make a step up. I do think Niko should move up as soon as possible, but another two years here would mean he’d be 22/23 when he leaves, which is still young. With the training background he has and where he was a couple of years ago (USports) there are probably still things he needs to polish and that extra year or two will do him good I think. There’s a midfielder his age for Dinamo who’s worth like 20 million, so it’s there is still room to grow for him in this league I’d say. I mean we don’t even know if he’ll be a consistent starter for Hajduk this year.

[Unnamed Trialist]

18 minutes ago, AnonymousInsider said:

I spoke to one of my Balkan friends after the thrashing of Dinamo. He said the Dinamo coach had a nightmare tactically and changed the whole strategy for Bayern. He got fired after the game, in his opinion deservedly. Croatian league has 3 good teams right now, and Dinamo might not be the strongest this year. He told me Hajduk is probably in line to dethrone Dinamo this year. I asked about Serbia as well, he told me it’s similar to the Croatian league, but Red Star does heavy lifting for their coefficient and they pick up all the talent because their budget is so much bigger than everyone else’s. Said Red Star is better than all Croatian teams. I asked about MLS and how it compares, he said top 3 would be above average to contenders, rest would be towards the bottom. He said a starter from those 3 would usually be good enough for Canada (lives in Canada by the way) but the rest would need to make a step up. I do think Niko should move up as soon as possible, but another two years here would mean he’d be 22/23 when he leaves, which is still young. With the training background he has and where he was a couple of years ago (USports) there are probably still things he needs to polish and that extra year or two will do him good I think. There’s a midfielder his age for Dinamo who’s worth like 20 million, so it’s there is still room to grow for him in this league I’d say. I mean we don’t even know if he’ll be a consistent starter for Hajduk this year.

Very much appreciated, great insights. 

I think Partizan is also probably better, most forget they've rivalled Red Star most of the century and just that raises their level. But still, a good assessment and really helpful to gauge the values.

Croatia league has a very high rate of producing top pros, their academies, especially Hadjuk Split and Zagreb, are up there with the best top league academies (probably Barça is tops as we sit).

[CanadaFan123]

1 hour ago, AnonymousInsider said:

I spoke to one of my Balkan friends after the thrashing of Dinamo. He said the Dinamo coach had a nightmare tactically and changed the whole strategy for Bayern. He got fired after the game, in his opinion deservedly. Croatian league has 3 good teams right now, and Dinamo might not be the strongest this year. He told me Hajduk is probably in line to dethrone Dinamo this year. I asked about Serbia as well, he told me it’s similar to the Croatian league, but Red Star does heavy lifting for their coefficient and they pick up all the talent because their budget is so much bigger than everyone else’s. Said Red Star is better than all Croatian teams. I asked about MLS and how it compares, he said top 3 would be above average to contenders, rest would be towards the bottom. He said a starter from those 3 would usually be good enough for Canada (lives in Canada by the way) but the rest would need to make a step up. I do think Niko should move up as soon as possible, but another two years here would mean he’d be 22/23 when he leaves, which is still young. With the training background he has and where he was a couple of years ago (USports) there are probably still things he needs to polish and that extra year or two will do him good I think. There’s a midfielder his age for Dinamo who’s worth like 20 million, so it’s there is still room to grow for him in this league I’d say. I mean we don’t even know if he’ll be a consistent starter for Hajduk this year.

Dinamo didn’t fare much better without their manager. Lost 4-1 this weekend to a smaller side. 

[archer21]

6 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

It's a "pase" in the Spanish bullfighting sense, Rakitic playing all those years in Seville: stand as still as you can as the beast brushes past you. 

Anyone else wondering about the real level of Croatia after Bayern embarrassed Zagreb? Is it maybe too low for Sigur?

I don't think my opinion of it has really changed. It's a fine league for a developing player but obviously it's better if he can move to a higher level. It's hard to compare when we're talking about Bayern because they could do that to a lot of teams. I don't think MLS teams would be able to keep it competitive against them and we're mostly fine with our players being there.

Sometimes when a goal or 2 is scored early it just gets out of hand. I'm sure if Zagreb played Bayern again there wouldn't be a repeat, at least to that extent.

[InglewoodJack]

47 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Very much appreciated, great insights. 

I think Partizan is also probably better, most forget they've rivalled Red Star most of the century and just that raises their level. But still, a good assessment and really helpful to gauge the values.

Croatia league has a very high rate of producing top pros, their academies, especially Hadjuk Split and Zagreb, are up there with the best top league academies (probably Barça is tops as we sit).

I think Serbia is increasingly becoming a one club league with Red Star having pulled far ahead over the last 5 years. As it stands, their current roster value is about €78M compared to Partizan’s €29M, much more comparable to Bačka Topola at €28M for example. In Croatia, Zagreb’s roster is worth about €73M, Split’s is worth €50M, and Rijeka at €30M.

I’m not as familiar with Croatia’s league, but I know the drop off between the top few teams in Serbia and the rest is quite dramatic, with some teams in their top division being CPL-tier. I feel that Croatia have better teams on aggregate and their top clubs seem to do a better job at bringing back some of their older ex national team stars.

That said, here’s a crazy stat: Dinano Zagreb would be 4th in CPL attendance per game this year. Yes, a team that qualified for champions league group stage in a major European capital draws 2,000 fewer fans than HFX wanderers, per game. 
 

In short, I think Sigur is good staying at Split for now, but I don’t think these Balkan leagues are very high quality. It’s good that these clubs are heavily scouted and I would imagine that it wouldn’t be too hard for a German or Italian club to snatch him up next summer or so.

[ahmedou]

I respect Hajduk Split. Because they keep playing Sigur. Even if Sigur decided to play for Canada instead of Croatia.

There's clubs from others countries that wouldn't let play Sigur in this situation. Because of nationalism reasons.

That's why I decided to order Sigur's Hajduk Split jersey.

[AnonymousInsider]

40 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

In short, I think Sigur is good staying at Split for now, but I don’t think these Balkan leagues are very high quality. It’s good that these clubs are heavily scouted and I would imagine that it wouldn’t be too hard for a German or Italian club to snatch him up next summer or so.

From a technical standpoint, it isn't. I think the physicality in those leagues isn't too far off the top leagues, but the speed of play is a step or two lower. That's why I think the best technical players succeed because they become "men" earlier playing in those leagues and it sets them up for success when they go to higher leagues. Because those players are so good technically they can adapt to the speed of play while having already adapted to physicality (more or less). Also playing for one of those big clubs opens you up to character-building experiences by playing in those derbies, so it also hardens them. As for attendance, based on what I could find Dinamo is averaging 12k per match this season, and Hajduk 19k (Transfermarkt), so I'm not really sure about the attendance figures. 

[Corazon]

2 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

I think Serbia is increasingly becoming a one club league with Red Star having pulled far ahead over the last 5 years. As it stands, their current roster value is about €78M compared to Partizan’s €29M, much more comparable to Bačka Topola at €28M for example. In Croatia, Zagreb’s roster is worth about €73M, Split’s is worth €50M, and Rijeka at €30M.

I thought I’d check some league stats on TransferMarkt as well.  I am seeing an average of over 12,000 as well across the 4 home games this season for Zagreb. 
What I did find interesting is the drop off this year in current roster value comparatively to the last few seasons.  Zagreb was valued at €150M just 5 seasons ago and even the smallest clubs all had market value above €10M.

2024/25

Dinamo Zagreb - €73.15M

Hadjuk Split - €50.04

Rijeka - €34.50M

Osijek - €19.85M

NK Lokomotiva - €11.78M

2023/24

Dinamo Zagreb - €126.85M

Hadjuk Split - €66.30M

Rijeka - €48.23M

Osijek - €32.38M

NK Lokomotiva - €23.60M

2022/23

Dinamo Zagreb - €116.50M

Hadjuk Split - €63.13M

Rijeka - €33.85M

Osijek - €34.75M

NK Lokomotiva - €23.60M

Edited September 22 by Corazon

[InglewoodJack]

25 minutes ago, AnonymousInsider said:

From a technical standpoint, it isn't. I think the physicality in those leagues isn't too far off the top leagues, but the speed of play is a step or two lower. That's why I think the best technical players succeed because they become "men" earlier playing in those leagues and it sets them up for success when they go to higher leagues. Because those players are so good technically they can adapt to the speed of play while having already adapted to physicality (more or less). Also playing for one of those big clubs opens you up to character-building experiences by playing in those derbies, so it also hardens them. As for attendance, based on what I could find Dinamo is averaging 12k per match this season, and Hajduk 19k (Transfermarkt), so I'm not really sure about the attendance figures. 

I guess too that a league like Croatia, especially the top teams, there are also a lot more ambitious goals than a lot of smaller leagues that develop young players- if you wanna play for Split or Zagreb, you need to actually win games and push for European competitions regardless of how high your potential is. I look at some of Sigur’s younger teammates at Split and they have many young players, but they’re all contributing well. You can’t just play a 20 year old RB/CDM unless he can actually help you win games. That helps these guys develop into better players.

Re: attendance, Transfermarkt for some reason sorted automatically to the 21/22 season which I assume was impacted by COVID, hence the figures. Zagreb did only average 9,000 last year which is still lower than I thought. 12k this year as you mention, though I don’t know if that’s an increase or if they’ve played bigger games on average thus far.

[InglewoodJack]

15 minutes ago, Corazon said:

I thought I’d check some league stats on TransferMarkt as well.  I am seeing an average of over 12,000 as well across the 4 home games this season for Zagreb. 
What I did find interesting is the drop off this year in current roster value comparatively to the last few seasons.  Zagreb was valued at $150M just 5 seasons ago and even the smallest clubs all had market value above $10M.

2024/25

Dinamo Zagreb - $73.15M

Hadjuk Split - $50.04

Rijeka - $34.50M

Osijek - $19.85M

2023/24

Dinamo Zagreb - $126.85M

Hadjuk Split - $66.30M

Rijeka - $48.23M

Osijek - $32.38M

2022/23

Dinamo Zagreb - $116.50M

Hadjuk Split - $63.13M

Rijeka - $33.85M

Osijek - $34.75M

Is it possible that past values are based on current value? Zagreb’s 21/22 lineup has Lovren valued at €20M, though he was sold for €12m to Rennes. A few players valued higher than what they were worth when they played there too.

[Corazon]

6 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

Is it possible that past values are based on current value? Zagreb’s 21/22 lineup has Lovren valued at €20M, though he was sold for €12m to Rennes. A few players valued higher than what they were worth when they played there too.

I was just about to add that, given Croatia is a selling league, I suspect that a lot of the new young talent on these teams will develop and improve throughout the season and we’ll see an uptick in values of the players and clubs by seasons end.

[InglewoodJack]

16 minutes ago, Corazon said:

I was just about to add that, given Croatia is a selling league, I suspect that a lot of the new young talent on these teams will develop and improve throughout the season and we’ll see an uptick in values of the players and clubs by seasons end.

It has to be something like that- I can’t imagine that their value was suddenly chopped in half because they sold all their players and didn’t replace like €80 worth of guys. If anything, Croatia is rapidly developing in general, I would imagine their league is better equipped to retain and develop top talent today than they were a few years ago. 
 

[Obinna]

Hadjuk Split brought in Perisic and Rakovic recently and both are quality veteran players. TM values are based on potential, which they don't have since they are obviously in the twilight of their careers.

If Hadjuk continue with the model of bringing in past their prime Croatian stars, the transfer value of the club will be lower and not a good barometer for the talent of the club, if that makes sense.

[Watchmen]

20 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Hadjuk Split brought in Perisic and Rakovic recently and both are quality veteran players. TM values are based on potential, which they don't have since they are obviously in the twilight of their careers.

If Hadjuk continue with the model of bringing in past their prime Croatian stars, the transfer value of the club will be lower and not a good barometer for the talent of the club, if that makes sense.

Perisic left Split after just a few months for PSV.

[to70]

On 9/22/2024 at 9:41 AM, ahmedou said:

I respect Hajduk Split. Because they keep playing Sigur. Even if Sigur decided to play for Canada instead of Croatia.

There's clubs from others countries that wouldn't let play Sigur in this situation. Because of nationalism reasons.

That's why I decided to order Sigur's Hajduk Split jersey.

Hajduk's fans are a different breed. They are extremely loyal to their Club, but a lot of them don't necessarily cheer for the Croatian national team. They will also cheer against some of the other Croatian teams in the European competitions. Their membership stands at well over a 100,000 . 

[InglewoodJack]

1 hour ago, to70 said:

Hajduk's fans are a different breed. They are extremely loyal to their Club, but a lot of them don't necessarily cheer for the Croatian national team. They will also cheer against some of the other Croatian teams in the European competitions. Their membership stands at well over a 100,000 . 

If the Split ultras do not cheer for the Croatian national team let me just quickly Google some of the things they do cheer for and oh my god oh my god Niko get OUT of there

[Unnamed Trialist]

So why is stadium attendance so soft in Croatia, I'm a bit surprised by what many here are saying?

[to70]

19 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

So why is stadium attendance so soft in Croatia, I'm a bit surprised by what many here are saying?

Most of the young people have left the country looking for better opportunity and life in Germany, Austria  and ireland. The country's population is on a downward slope. Hajduk has pretty good attendance, Dinamo's is slowly creeping back as a lot of their fans were boycotting the games as the team was run by a mobster for years. Also, the stadium they're playing in is crumbling and one of the stands is shut down. The city owns the land and stadium and just keep promising to renovate, but won't turn it over to the Club. Rijeka plays in a temporary 8,000 seat stadium that's pretty close to capacity for most games as they await for the municipality to renovate the main stadium.  Osijek has a new 12,000 privately built (Hungarian owners) state of the art stadium, but the player budget has since been cut severely. The rest of the teams get about 1,000 per game mostly due to smaller populations or disinterest.

[Unnamed Trialist]

10 minutes ago, to70 said:

Most of the young people have left the country looking for better opportunity and life in Germany, Austria  and ireland. The country's population is on a downward slope. Hajduk has pretty good attendance, Dinamo's is slowly creeping back as a lot of their fans were boycotting the games as the team was run by a mobster for years. Also, the stadium they're playing in is crumbling and one of the stands is shut down. The city owns the land and stadium and just keep promising to renovate, but won't turn it over to the Club. Rijeka plays in a temporary 8,000 seat stadium that's pretty close to capacity for most games as they await for the municipality to renovate the main stadium.  Osijek has a new 12,000 privately built (Hungarian owners) state of the art stadium, but the player budget has since been cut severely. The rest of the teams get about 1,000 per game mostly due to smaller populations or disinterest.

A few years back I was looking at the project for the new Rijeka stadium (working on a project that sent artists on a cultural exchange there), and that is a beautiful proposal, absolutely exemplary. As seemed the ambition to renew architecture and infrastructure in the city, which has a lot of potential.

Losing young people, meaning weak opportunities, is a real problem for a country that should have a young spirit and be investing accordingly. I just took a look and they are projecting losing 15-20% of he population by 2050, shocking.

[Bertuzzi44]

Do people not immigrate to Croatia? Is it too racist there or something?

[An Observer]

6 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

Do people not immigrate to Croatia? Is it too racist there or something?

It’s a quite racist and religious country but my good Croatian friend has been saying there has been quite a bit of immigration recently as there is a labour shortage due to the high levels of emigration. 

[eramosat]

I have quite a few Bosnian friends here in Canada, who mostly arrived in the 90s.  Many of them visit, but none seem interested in returning permanently anytime soon. And you don't have to encourage them to talk about it....they are extremely forthright in their opinions, and why they would simply never go back.

 

[Buchta]

6 hours ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

Do people not immigrate to Croatia? Is it too racist there or something?

2023 - 69,396 immigrated to Croatia and 39,218 emigrated.  In previous years, more people emigrated.  Joining the EU in 2023 probably helped to change those numbers.  

Edited September 25 by Buchta

[InglewoodJack]

With how quickly it’s developing and how beautiful the country is, I’m surprised that Croatia is meant to lose population through to 2050. I‘ve heard of quite a few people whose families left the Balkans a few decades ago, only for the children to return once they have their education and some work experience. I know Croatia has this visa that allows you to move there for work (remotely?) relatively easy. I also met quite a few people in Serbia who were either born abroad or left very young only to return in their early 20s to come work, but I think many more people leave on aggregate from there. 

Speaking of Croatian attendance though, some YouTube video that I stumbled upon yesterday was about this guy going to his first Split/Zagreb derby, hyping it up as one of the most intense matches in Europe, and when it got to the part where the game was going on, there were so many empty seats. One of the stands looked completely closed off. It was a regular season game, one from last month (Sigur played!), but was surprised the stadium wasn’t completely filled.