Dinamo Zagreb sack Jurcic after Lyon fiasco
Reuters - Thursday 08 December 2011, 00:10
Dinamo Zagreb sacked coach
Krunoslav Jurcic after ending their Champions League campaign
with a 7-1 home rout by French side Olympique Lyon on Wednesday,
club officials said.
The result left Dinamo, who are on course to win their
seventh successive Croatian league title, rooted to the bottom
of Group D with no points from six games, having scored just
three goals while they conceded 22.
"The board convened straight after the game and we decided
to part company with Jurcic because this was an embarrassing end
to our interest in Europe this season," the club's executive
director Zdravko Mamic told Croatian media.
"We have to find a way to make it up to the fans. This is
not cheap talk, we had long-term plans with Jurcic and we
discussed the future at lunch this afternoon.
"It's a difficult defeat to stomach," added Mamic after the
home team's players were jeered off the pitch by angry fans who
turned up in freezing weather.
Dinamo were reduced to 10 men midway through the first half
before 17-year old midfielder Mateo Kovacic fired them into a
40th-minute lead against Lyon, who needed an emphatic win to
stay in the hunt for a berth in the last 16.
Having started the night three points behind Ajax Amsterdam
who also had a vastly superior goal difference, Lyon produced
just the avalanche of goals they needed after Bafetimbi Gomis
levelled on the stroke of half-time.
With the other result going their way as Group D winners
Real Madrid beat Ajax 3-0, the floodgates opened at the Maksimir Stadium after the break as four-goal Gomis led the charge.
Jurcic acknowledged Dinamo were always going to struggle in
the group stage of Europe's premier club competition.
"It's difficult to find an alibi after a 7-1 drubbing but
reaching the group stage was deemed a huge success at the start
of the season and I'd rather we tried to punch above our weight
and learn than play in the Europa League," he said.
"We have all the makings of a young and inexperienced team
which can't deal with difficult situations, when players get
paralysed by adversity instead of fighting back."