The Osijek Story

Ivica Kulesevic walks out on cash-ridden Croatian club.
-Matej Novak walks in on the biggest challenge of his life!

To say that Croatian First Division side NK Osijek are in a poor financial state would be the biggest understatement you would ever say. The 1999 Croatian Cup winners have a debt that has been predicted to measure up to £19m on their hands and Ivica Kulesevic has stated that he can no longer work under such financial restraints. Osijek were quick to announce Ivica's replacement, however, in youth coach Matej Novak.

Matej has came into the club knowing fully what he has entered into. The board cannot offer him any money to spend and he can't bring in players that aren't contracted to other clubs because the club is already £13 000 over it's wage budget. Matej has stated that he wants to take the club as far as he can but he needs to endure that falls before the ups.

Osijek are a proud club that lifted the Croatian Cup title in 1999 and have finished 3rd in the Croatian First Division 6 times. Osijek have not been without their occasional UEFA Cup run and have taken on sides such as Slavia Prague, Anderlecht and West Ham United. Recently however their finances have stopped progression and the club have been slowly rolling back to mid-table, finishing 7th last season.

To raise some money and start pushing the club forward again Matej will need to make use of interest of top players such as right-winger Tomislav Sorsa and striker Antonio Perosivic, but it is still early day's for the new manager and we can't yet be quite sure of his pan-of-action.

Matej has tried to stray away from talking about the finances of the club and has only openly talked about how he wants to bring glory to the club. In a press conference held to announce his hiring he talked about how he wanted to bring stability between defence and attack and how he wants his defenders to win games. He talked about watching football in England and seeing teams who played by pumping the ball up to big, goal hungry Strikers. He stated that although this can be effective it is not how he wanted to play and it is not exciting to watch. He was then asked if he was going to try and play football 'The Spanish Way' in which he replied confidently "I want us to play good football, but I also want us to win. Right now I could say we can come in and play long-balls to the striker and see him score 20 goals a season but that is not the type of team we have. I don't mean to cause offense to the strikers we have but they are not currently capable of this. I could also say that I can take this squad and play quick, attacking football that is pleasing on the eye and will bring in crowds. But come on, what are the chances of us being able to do that. I want to play direct football but I want us to mainly be solid at the back. Until I can build a team of my own this may not be beautiful to watch but in my mind it will do the trick." After saying this the new manager stood up and silently stormed off, leaving the room completely silent.

Amazing start man

Lulic and Sorsa leave Osijek
Osijek's star man and vice-captain Tomislav Sorsa and highly rated 17 year-old Karlo Lulic have left the club on transfer deals along with the mutual termination of 3rd choice keeper Borja Zitnjak's contract.

Tomislav Sorsa was a key player at NK Osijek but has left to Italian Serie A side U.C. Sampdoria for a fee of £925 000. This was a huge sum of money for a club seriousley lacking in it and was enough to snatch the prize posession of new manager Novak. The fans of the club are reportedly devastated by the departure but can understand the reasoning behind it.


Youngster Karlo Lulic is rated very highly by the youth staff of Osijek but they will only get to see him develop at English Championship side Queens Park Rangers after he has moved for an initial £425 000 which, after certain clauses in the transfer deal are activated, may eventually rise up to £1.2m.


3rd choice keeper Borja Zitnjak (19) has had his contract terminated by the club as Matej stated "I'm not paying someones contract if I have no intention of ever playing them". Marin Glavis, Matija Misic and Marko Dugandzic have also been moved onto new clubs on loan deals lasting until the end of the season.

Matej has yet to make a move in the transfer window having not been able to gather up a player willing to take serious pay-cuts, but he is still hopeful of getting 1 or 2 players in before too far into the season.

...who the hell are they? Anyway, nice start, I'll be following

Disaster strikes in two ways for Osijek in Novak first game
-NK Osijek 0-2 NK Zadar

New manager Matej Novak had a debut to forget at Gradski vrt as they are beat 2-0 by relegation favourites NK Zadar. The first sign that things weren't going the way of the home side was when captain Ivo Smoje pulled up with a suspected strained knee ligament after twisting his leg turning. There wasn't really anything in the game until Osijek number 9 Goran Ljubojevic went on a mazy run through the Zadar defence but his shot whizzed past the wrong side of the far post. Things turned from bad to worse for Osijek when full back Borna Baisic fouled Zadar striker Josip Tadic in the box, the referee didn't have to think about pointing straight to the spot and Mato Neretljak cooly put the away side one-nil up. On the 86th minute a mix-up in defence let Josip Tadic run in onto a one-on-one with the Osijek keeper whom he rounded and cleared the game up for Zadar.

This game will be very disappointing to Matej but in a press-conference after the game he wasn't too disappointed and said that he can't let one result down the whole squad, especially when it only his first game as manager.

I AM NOT A NOOB!

Good start to the story, looking forward to updates!

Hajduk win the South v East derby
-HNK Hajduk s.d.d. 1-0 NK Osijek (4/8/13)

18 331 people showed up to watch the first South v East derby this season at Poljund. Hajduk dominated for most of the game but it took 83 minutes for Mario Maloca to put the Spilit side ahead. After the match Novak still remained upbeat saying that it is early days and even though he has seen his Osijek side play better, he is glad that he has found an area he can really work on in the training ground.

2 more leave Osijek
-Perosevic and Novakovic move on to pastures new

Antonio Perosevic was who many a Osijek fan thought the future number 9 would be but after Novak telling the press he had no room for keeping youth players on normal player salaries it was clear that he wasn't looking to be keeping Antonio on. Serie A side Cagliari have came in and swooped up the 21 year-old for a fee of 650k.


Sasa Novakovic fell also fell into the 'back up young player who may one day become an important player role'. But Sasa is a good player, and Novak knows this. Novak took the interest of various middle-eastern clubs and shown him off to them in a couple of recent fixtures against lower league sides in which the Croatian played well. Al-Rayyan swooped in and splashed out an incredible £1.6m on him.


Finally Novak makes his first signing
-Sinisa Lulic joins Osijek on a free

Mr Novak has finally brought a player into the club, however, in the shape of midfielder Sinisa Lulic. The 30 year-old was released by Istra 1961 last year after only playing 5 games but Novak has put faith in his ability by signing him up on a £825 per week contract lasting 2 seasons.

Linic looks very good, some solid stats!

The Call

It was a cold night in Osijek and there were plenty of signs that Autumn was fast approaching. Training had finished and Mr Novak was finishing off reading his scouts reports of his next opponent, giants GNK Dinamo. Mr Novak was excited to manage NK Osijek in the 35 000 seater Maksimir Stadium. As he finished reading the reports he slowly rose from his desk and walked to a small window on the other side of his office with overlooked the main training field. As soon as he reached the window he looked out at the dark world and felt immediately sick and a sense of fore boarding came over him, something bad was about to happen and he knew it. Disturbed by this sensation Mr Novak walked out to his small, grey Vauxhall Golf which he held very dear in his heart and set off on his journey back home. Around a quarter of the way into the journey which he took every day he felt his pocket vibrate as his phone went off. Mr Novak is a safe man and pulled over on a dark patch of the road in deadly silence and rang the private number that had rang him moments earlier. As it rang he felt, strange. The mysterious caller picked up their phone and said the words "Hello Matej" he knew that this was the return of a problem he so deeply tried to forget about.

ohhh zapdos the greatttt

I love the details in your updates mate!

The End

Sadly this story will be stopped now, the save has corrupted and the last save I have is at the start of the save. I will be looking for a new save to do and get stuck into, but sadly we will never know who was on the phone to Mr Novak...