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Season starts in two weeks as the new TV deal kicks in hence the name and sponsorship change for the league. The top flight will simply be known as the 'HNL' while the second tier will be rebranded as the 1.NL and the unified third tier will be known as 2.NL. The format for the top flight remains the same, each team plays each other four times, with the bottom club getting relegated. Varazdin return to the HNL after a one season absence. Here are the full fixtures: Raspored i rezultati - SuperSport HNL
Not too many new managers this summer in the HNL as most clubs actually kept the same managers from last season. Dinamo took the interim tag off of Ante Cacic after he won the title. Rijeka made a surprising move, they knew Tomic was leaving and despite some foreign managers being linked to the job they hired the duo of Fausto Budicin and Dragan Tadic. Budicin managed Orijent Rijeka and Istra recently while Tadic coached the Rijeka junior team and was Dragovoljac's manager the second half of last season when they became a Rijeka feeder team for those few months. Damir Canadi, an Austrian with Croatian descent, is the new Sibenik manager
Dinamo have been the most busy club so far in the summer transfer window already adding Bosko Sutalo (Atalanta), Josip Drmic (Rijeka) and Robert Ljubicic (Rapid Wien). While several players could still leave, especially the NT players, the only notable loss so far is Bartol Franjic who left for Wolfsburg
Hajduk have been slow so far this transfer window, the only key addition so far is former U21 international Toni Borevkovic who arrives from Guimaraes on loan. Katic and Ferro will not return from their loan stints while Lovre Kalinic permanently joins from Aston Villa
Osijek, after a turbulent second half of the season have also been fairly inactive so far in the transfer window but the big news is that despite interest from abroad, Bjelica will remain as manager
Rijeka on paper once again are probably the weakest of the 'big 4' but they look to be active in the window, they already signed Matej Mitrovic from Brugge (on paper decent signing but he's not played much due to injury past few years) and Mario Vrancic who has EPL and Championship experience. They have been linked with Alen Halilovic and Marko Rog these past few days. However, they have lost some key players as Smolcic was sold to Frankfurt, Drmic left for Dinamo and the duo of Muric/Pavicic go to Konyaspor
Not much to say so far about the rest of the league, Gorica sold Kotarski to PAOK and will replace him with Karlo Ziger, young keeper who was in the Chelsea academy. Gorica and Loko should be comfortable mid-table once again but hard to see them push for Europe, unless Rijeka totally collapse. Istra could be interesting however due to Alaves' relegation from La Liga their budget will be cut, as usual they will try to sign youngsters on loan from the bigger clubs, they have already signed Bartol Barisic on loan, a promising prospect from the Dinamo youth teams. One good thing about Istra is they are starting to develop better players from their own youth academy
The main candidates for the drop once again are probably Slaven Belupo, Sibenik and newly promoted Varazdin; Slaven on paper are much weaker than last season having lost Zvonarek and Krstanovic; Sibenik will probably try to same formula as last season bringing in youngsters on loan from the top clubs but their ownership is much more stable than last season so that might help while Varazdin haven't done much of note other than brigning in Jozo Stanic on loan from Augsburg
The 1.NL has been reduced to 12 clubs this season and hopefully like last season it should be an exciting race at both ends of the table. Part of the league restructuring is that the second teams were automatically relegated, Dinamo got rid of theirs completely while Osijek II will compete in the third tier. The newly promoted team in this league is Vukovar '91 who seem pretty ambitious. Inter Zapresic, who nearly became the de facto 'Dinamo II' this summer are apparently on the verge of bankruptcy. Hard to say who the favorites are, very few of these clubs can get licenses anyway so its probably one of the Zagreb based clubs
Not too many new managers this summer in the HNL as most clubs actually kept the same managers from last season. Dinamo took the interim tag off of Ante Cacic after he won the title. Rijeka made a surprising move, they knew Tomic was leaving and despite some foreign managers being linked to the job they hired the duo of Fausto Budicin and Dragan Tadic. Budicin managed Orijent Rijeka and Istra recently while Tadic coached the Rijeka junior team and was Dragovoljac's manager the second half of last season when they became a Rijeka feeder team for those few months. Damir Canadi, an Austrian with Croatian descent, is the new Sibenik manager
Dinamo have been the most busy club so far in the summer transfer window already adding Bosko Sutalo (Atalanta), Josip Drmic (Rijeka) and Robert Ljubicic (Rapid Wien). While several players could still leave, especially the NT players, the only notable loss so far is Bartol Franjic who left for Wolfsburg
Hajduk have been slow so far this transfer window, the only key addition so far is former U21 international Toni Borevkovic who arrives from Guimaraes on loan. Katic and Ferro will not return from their loan stints while Lovre Kalinic permanently joins from Aston Villa
Osijek, after a turbulent second half of the season have also been fairly inactive so far in the transfer window but the big news is that despite interest from abroad, Bjelica will remain as manager
Rijeka on paper once again are probably the weakest of the 'big 4' but they look to be active in the window, they already signed Matej Mitrovic from Brugge (on paper decent signing but he's not played much due to injury past few years) and Mario Vrancic who has EPL and Championship experience. They have been linked with Alen Halilovic and Marko Rog these past few days. However, they have lost some key players as Smolcic was sold to Frankfurt, Drmic left for Dinamo and the duo of Muric/Pavicic go to Konyaspor
Not much to say so far about the rest of the league, Gorica sold Kotarski to PAOK and will replace him with Karlo Ziger, young keeper who was in the Chelsea academy. Gorica and Loko should be comfortable mid-table once again but hard to see them push for Europe, unless Rijeka totally collapse. Istra could be interesting however due to Alaves' relegation from La Liga their budget will be cut, as usual they will try to sign youngsters on loan from the bigger clubs, they have already signed Bartol Barisic on loan, a promising prospect from the Dinamo youth teams. One good thing about Istra is they are starting to develop better players from their own youth academy
The main candidates for the drop once again are probably Slaven Belupo, Sibenik and newly promoted Varazdin; Slaven on paper are much weaker than last season having lost Zvonarek and Krstanovic; Sibenik will probably try to same formula as last season bringing in youngsters on loan from the top clubs but their ownership is much more stable than last season so that might help while Varazdin haven't done much of note other than brigning in Jozo Stanic on loan from Augsburg
The 1.NL has been reduced to 12 clubs this season and hopefully like last season it should be an exciting race at both ends of the table. Part of the league restructuring is that the second teams were automatically relegated, Dinamo got rid of theirs completely while Osijek II will compete in the third tier. The newly promoted team in this league is Vukovar '91 who seem pretty ambitious. Inter Zapresic, who nearly became the de facto 'Dinamo II' this summer are apparently on the verge of bankruptcy. Hard to say who the favorites are, very few of these clubs can get licenses anyway so its probably one of the Zagreb based clubs
