- How the media pick their favourite teams and stand by them no matter what
- Arsenal v Dinamo Zagreb – the team with 19 recent titles
By Bulldog Drummond.
Now we have spent some time talking about how Dinamo Zagreb are eternal league champions of Croatia, here’s the funny thing. It is the current league table… and you will find that with careful examination the figures show that they are not top of the league, for the first time in an almost uncountable number of years….
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rijeka | 17 | 9 | 8 | 0 | 26 | 7 | 19 | 35 |
| 2 | Hajduk Split | 17 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 28 | 14 | 14 | 35 |
| 3 | Dinamo Zagreb | 18 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 35 | 24 | 11 | 29 |
| 4 | Osijek | 18 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 28 | 23 | 5 | 26 |
I am sorry to say that Untold’s network of spies and informants doesn’t extend as far as Croatia so if you would like to write in and let us all know what has gone wrong after so many years of winning, we’d all benefit from that educational input.
For there is a piece on Arsenal.com which suggests from its title it is complete in the telling of the story (Everything you need to know about Dinamo Zagreb) . But I am not at all sure this is everything I need to know, not least because if you were to listen to “What on earth is going on at Dinamo Zagreb?” on YouTube you would get a story so totally different, you will only be able to conclude that one of the two reports is written by a person who knows absolutely nothing about the club. For the audio report is a story of corruption in football and beyond on a scale that it is impossible to comprehend if all you do is watch English football.
By way of example, it is said that in March DZ played Tottenham after the Zagreb manager was given a four-year prison sentence for financial activities. But he’s still not behind bars.
Indeed so massive is the scale of corruption that is reported in that audio commentary, I couldn’t begin to (nor would I dare to) summarise it here, since I simply don’t possess the evidence to verify it. But safe to say, if even 10% of the allegations presented in that audio report on YouTube are true, Dinamo Zagreb have for a number of years been the most corrupt club in Europe – and have been getting away with it.
The corruption reported in that audio has led them into a world of chaos and missing senior management, born out of the post-war Croatian corruption with gangsters running much of its business and government empires.
Indeed, in general what we have is a tale of a country and football that has sunk under corruption, so vast that it is virtually impossible to comprehend. Key men, it is said, have become club coaches, player managers and directors of clubs and seemingly owners of the league itself, as well as the owners of stadia. Stadia which are from time to time upgraded at least on paper, for fees far above anything that is actually seen. Corruption it is alleged, is everywhere, and is allowed through the way the Constitution is written.
As a result, in football, match-fixing seems to be quite regular, and openly discussed while investigations by journalists are generally stopped by threats from those being investigated.
What’s more, this is a club that has had (we are told) 24 managers since 2008 – which is two managers a season. Among other things, European games have simply been used to give publicity to a young star so he could be sold.
And all this in a club that is supposed to be owned and run by the fans. The level of corruption alleged is massive, starting with contracts being changed after they had been signed and going out in every direction from there,
But of course I can’t validate any of this. All I can say is I find it on a coherent report which you can listen to if you wish..
Meanwhile, back home, Ethan Nwaneri and Riccardo Calafiori are said to have returned to training ahead of the game. Elsewhere, the Telegraph is going even further and telling us that The Telegraph that Ben White, is believed to be nearing returns in the next few weeks.
Moving on, Arsenal sit fourth in the Premier League across the last six games as can be seen below…
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nottingham Forest | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 3 | +9 | 16 |
| 2 | Newcastle | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 5 | +10 | 15 |
| 3 | Liverpool | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 19 | 7 | +12 | 14 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 6 | +8 | 14 |
And in the Croatian League
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | BTTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rijeka | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 3 | +4 | 12 | 2 |
| 2 | Slaven Belupo | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 10 | 9 | +1 | 11 | 5 |
| 3 | Lokomotiva Zagreb | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 8 | +4 | 10 | 4 |
| 4 | Hajduk Split | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 7 | +1 | 9 | 4 |
| 5 | NK Osijek | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 10 | 8 | +2 | 7 | 4 |
| 6 | Istra | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 7 | 5 |
| 7 | NK Varazdin | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 7 | 4 |
| 8 | Dinamo Zagreb | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 9 | -2 | 6 | 4 |
| 9 | NK Sibenik | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 11 | -5 | 4 | 3 |
| 10 | HNK Gorica | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 10 | -5 | 4 | 3 |
To put this another way and to make it all perfectly clear, we can compare Arsenal’s last six games with Dinamo Zagreb’s last six games
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 6 | +8 | 14 |
| 8 | Dinamo Zagreb | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 9 | -2 | 6 |
In which case a defeat, or indeed even a draw, is pretty much unthinkable from an Arsenal point of view. Unless of course there is some money changing hands – although I have no evidence of that.
