Darius1998

Season tickets are up but we won't be playing at our home stadium. Stadion pokraj Jadra meets the minimum seating criteria for the league but for some reason, we are instead playing 13km away at our rivals Dugopolje's Hrvatski Vitezovi.

NK Solin Hrvatska NL 2025-26 Preseason Bit of an unusual preseason as most of the lower-tier sides weren't available because we started so early. We played a few games in Bosnia and Serbia before returning home. Hajduk proposed a friendly as well and we competed very well against them, somewhat lucking out with a late equaliser too. Squad Transfers 1 | Transfers 2 New players in a bunch of positions as we tried to make improvements where possible. Kovacevic should be an upgrade on Runje in goal, Calusic is in from Istra at CB while Letaj is our latest LB on loan from Hajduk. Hrgovic played for us a couple of years ago and he's back on loan, this time from Varazdin instead. Vukovic is probably the best player I have signed so far, Karic looks like a handy DM and Cisse can play a few positions. Season expectations We're very unfancied. First professional contract! Also we will be earning some actual money this season.

Not great, especially with our financial position. We're down to below average here, same as our youth facilities. Great stuff, our players can now train every day instead of two days a week. I expect it to be a real slog next season as Sibenik easily beat us in the cup but went down having been 14 points adrift at the end of the season. Going to be interesting to see if we can get some good players in from Hajduk because we have little chance otherwise. Our budget was one of the lowest in the 2nd tier and we ended up being pretty reliant on the loanees.

We absolutely smashed the previous record of 68 points. A great season for our forwards and Kargbo took full advantage of our chance creation. Simply outstanding. Only 19 but easily our best player by some distance. Nice bonus! Our players managed a clean sweep defensively here.

NK Solin Prva NL 2024-25 April & May Fixtures With Rudes keeping up with us, we had to keep on picking up results and we did just that! Coming from behind to get a win against Sesvete and a draw against Jarun was massive and we held our nerves in the final stretch. With a head-to-head advantage over our direct rivals, we only needed one win from the last two games to secure the title and we did just that as Kapitanovic scored twice against Zrinski. League table Rudes themselves lost their last game which makes things look easier than they were in reality. A couple more to add to the collection. Career progress Season | Team | Country | Division | Position | Cup | Continental Comp. | Notes ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2023-24 | NK Solin | Croatia | Prva NL | 5th | N.A | N.A | Nat. C and B licenses gained 2024-25 | NK Solin | Croatia | Prva NL | 1st | R1 | N.A | Promoted; Nat. A and Cont. C licenses gained

Finances are still considered 'okay' and the board are happy enough to keep funding these courses as long as they stay that way.

NK Solin Prva NL 2024-25 Youth Candidates Nikodin Srna | Branko Erceg Two of them look decent-ish. Maybe they will end up having a career outside the top flight here.

NK Solin 2024-25 February & March Fixtures After a great start, we suddenly tailed off in March. Rudes went 3-0 up at the break and then soon added a 4th. We got two back but weren't good enough on the day. This was followed by two frustrating draws before our bogey team and nemesis, Dugopolje, beat us again. We did, however, make some amends by beating another rival team in Cibalia to finally earn a win in March. League table Rudes hitting form coincided with our drop off and they briefly went top, before losing at home to Dugopolje themselves. Our 3rd and final game against them is thankfully at our place but we really do need to take full advantage. He might be 18 but he's looked like a player way beyond our level. It has been a great run, having started with a win in the final game of the previous season.

Took us just the 19 games to do it!

NK Solin 2024-25 Mid-season break Looked like the usual break until we messed up against Slavonija and then didn't exactly dominate RNK Split. Transfers A couple of players who weren't getting games departed. We initially didn't sign anyone but Valerio Verre was too good to pass up on. He's instantly rated as the best player in our team and will go straight in as one of the two CAMs.

Wahey! Time to take advantage. Two year deal this time.

That's not good. We're still spending under €4k p/w but it means we might struggle to renew a few contracts at the end of the season. That's even worse. Amusingly, it also says 'excellent intake' on the side too.

NK Solin Prva NL 2024-25 October & November The crucial game against Rudes very much went our way as we absolutely romped to victory. A bit of a slowdown followed as Jarun and Dugopolje easily held us to draws while Orijent and Vukovar could both consider themselves a little unfortunate to not get anything against us. However, we returned to form against Dubrava as Kargbo smashed in 5 and although Cibalia later held us to a draw, we went into the winter break with a confident win at Sesvete. Our cup journey unfortunately came to an end as Sibenik proved to be more clinical on the day. League table Having looked extremely formidable for the first three months, Rudes have suddenly hit a rut, allowing us to open a 7-point advantage at the halfway stage. 2nd time this season! A couple more records broken.

11 league games in and we're still unbeaten. The cup draw pit us against last season's 2nd tier champions Sibenik which is about an average draw. Dinamo and Osijek are notable absentees, having been knocked out by teams from the 3rd tier or below in the first round itself.

We've racked up a few awards already! Loncar has been magnificent since he came in and has made us forget the loss of Lovrencsics already, despite being of such a tender age.

NK Solin Prva NL 2024-25 August & September First things first, we have been excellent in the league. A couple of early thumpings at homeset the tone and we have been able to carry on without many hiccups. We've also won two away games, matching our tally from the entirety of last season in just two months. We scored early at Dugopolje but they pegged us back and then held us off while a missed Kapitanovic penalty was the only thing that prevented a win at Dubrava. Other than that, Bijelo Brdo took the lead against us but two penalties from Kargbo turned it around and we were 4-1 up by half-time after which we saw it out easily to end the month on a high. We were also in the cup after not being in it last season and had a favourable draw at HNK Zadar, who play a couple of leagues below us. A rotated team did its job as got some minutes in our reserve players' legs. League table I can't really have asked for a better start to the season. Our first game against October also sees us host Rudes and who knows, it might be a game that makes us dream big. A nice moment for another young kid.

All national level coaching courses done but that might be the last course for a while though. Quite often players put in sub-6.0 training performances and I have a talk with them. I might be turning into Felix Magath.

First game of the season. And then our second home game (third game overall)!

NK Solin Prva NL 2024-25 Preseason Transfers (part 1) | Transfers (part 2) I'm pretty happy with our transfer dealings this summer. Mihovilovic is in to provide more competition at CB, with Dumancic likely leaving at the end of the season. Brtan and Bobanovic can be our DM going forward this season while Jovanovic's deal was agreed at a time when Kapitanovic was unhappy and seemed like he might move. Well, he ended up staying too and now we have two very good left wingers. None of the previous Hajduk loanees were allowed back as they wanted them to be tested in different environments but the 6 that we brought in all look very good too. Loncar will replace the departed Lovrencsics on the right, Skoko looks excellent and will be one of our first choice CAMs in this mad 4-1-4-1 I'm using while Bacic could be a decent rotation option for Kargbo. Pedisic was a bit of a blind signing but that's only for 6 months anyway and I don't plan on renewing that one when the deal expires. This is the wildest preseason I've ever had. None of the teams were any good, just local teams to reduce travel costs but hitting 10+ goals on 3 separate occasions felt ridiculous. Season expectations Our transfer business seems to have made a clear difference and we're now comfortably rated as a top-half team. Rudes came down and have extremely low odds similar to Sibenik last season so I wonder if it's just a bug. We'll be aiming for a top 3 finish and if anything beyond that would be a bonus.

They've already backtracked on those incredible low expectation then. Also seems like we are in the cup this season, unlike last season.

NK Solin Prva NL 2023-24 April to June Lots of goals, both for us and our opponents but somehow, the 2nd half of the season still came down to us not scoring enough! Or conceding too many when we did score enough. Vukovar took advantage of that to get a point at our place while Jarun and Sesvete beat us even though we matched or even bettered them over the course of those matches, even hitting the woodwork thrice against the latter. A couple of fine wins followed with the win at Zrinski Osjecko giving us only our 2nd (and final) away win of the season. We would go on to finish with the best home record in the league as well as the 3rd worst away record, only managing a point more away from home than the bottom two did. Dugopolje took full advantage of our defence's charity after we didn't take enough of our chances while Sibenik swept us away in a rare game where we were completely outclassed. The season finished with a comfortable win over Cibalia, although they did score in injury time to give us a scare. League table Overall, it was a decent season for us as we took 5th quite easily in the end. Pre-season favourites Sibenik looked to have made a meal of things for most of the season but hit form at a crucial stage to race past Dugopolje to the title. Squad (Part 1) | Squad (Part 2) The board have decided to hike our wage budget by €900 p/w but expectations are down. We are only expected to avoid relegation next season by both the board as well as the fans. As for me, I think we can get close to the top and target a top 3 finish if we get the right loanees from Hajduk. None of those on loan at present are going to renew (at the moment anyway) while we are also losing Lovrencsics, who is still among our top 3 players for sheer ability. Another crucial thing is that teams in this division have to have 3 U21 players in their starting XI, which makes it more important for our loanees to be young as well as good. Players under the age of 17 can't play, however, so I need to wait a while to give our new youngsters a chance. Career progress Season | Team | Country | Division | Position | Cup | Continental Comp. | Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2023-24 | NK Solin | Croatia | Prva NL | 5th | N.A | N.A | Nat. C and B license gained

I'll take what I can. No change in wages but as long as they keep funding my coaching badges, I'm happy to stay here.

NK Solin Prva NL 2023-24 February & March We returned from the break with two topsy-turvy games in a row. Dugopolje came out on top of a 5 goal thriller before a frustrating game at Vukovar. They went 2-0 up from a couple of half chances before we scored two after the break to level things up and in the end, it really was a missed opportunity. March saw us dominate at home as we swept away everyone who visited the Adriatic coast, including pre-season favourites Sibenik. A different story away from home though as Orijent easily beat us before an entertaining draw at Bijelo Brdo. They went ahead through a penalty before we equalised in the last 15 minutes thanks to an own goal. League table Continuing to have a decent season overall. The supporters are pleased while the board are only satisfied. Our March efforts also meant that I made it to the top 3 for manager of the month.

NK Solin Prva NL 2023-24 Youth Candidates Patrik Tomasevic | Gregor Cuze | Tarik Ikanovic Elite talents at our level obviously mean nought as everyone is so bad. These three are the pick of the bunch from this year's intake with Tomasevic rated the biggest prospect. Unfortunately, he also has a pretty crap personality. Cuze is resolute and might be one to watch out for. I don't plan on signing any of them to anything more than youth contracts, just to see if we can get some compensation if a club approaches any of them.

A couple of games into the 2nd half of the season and our performances have shown an improvement. We're holding steady when it comes to results.