HK Partizan - Szegedi Tisza Volán 8:0

Some said, this game would be a derby. In fact it was a training match.

News reported about the Szeged-based team that they arrived in Belgrade with half the team. No source mentions though why it happened so.

There isn’t much to say about it. It was smooth, we were leading in the first period to 3:0. In the second period started that wave of exclusions that added a lot to Szeged’s defeat. Partizan kept on scoring, the end result of the second part was 6:0.
Tihonov saved. He had 21 (!!!) saves during the game. Nothing could shake him, disturb him or weaken him. Tihonov is HK Partizan’s main bastion.
In the third period we scored two more. Game done, there are only two left until the play-off, one against HK Vitez the other is against Vojvodina.
The hero of the day was Pavle Ogrizović with two goals and an assist. The others - Dimitrije Filipović, Marko Milovanović, Anton Zhukov, Stepan Krivov, Alexander Vlasov and Nenad Raković - all scored 1-1.

(photos: Hokejaški klub Partizan (Fan page))

HK Partizan - Crvena Zvezda 2:3

We didn't deserve this defeat.
I swear someone up there surely hated Partizan constantly winning the championship title, so they ordered the referees to help Zvezda to achieve victory, by any means.

Why, how would YOU explain that three (!!!) of our players were excluded at a time?...

(photo: Twitter)

But let’s keep the chronological order.

Our boys come out to the rink

(screenshot)

We were sliding around, warming up

(screenshot)

(photo: Twitter)

They greeted the fans

(photo: Twitter)

High five and respect to those Grave Diggers who had been to Pionir Ice Hall to support the team. I have no infos about the number of Zvezda-fans being present, but Grobari were much louder than them.

The two teams clashed like two packs of roaring lions. Really. The first period brought an exciting, spectacular, great game. I wish everyone to watch such an ice-hockey match as this first period was.

(photo: Facebook/Hokej savez na ledu Srbije)

Seriously I wish everyone to experience this atmosphere.

Our goalkeeper Tikhonov was fantastic. This man saved the unsaveable. Zvezda got into double power play after 7 minutes and it all looked that they were waiting for this very moment. They made a brutal class-firing on our goal.
And Tikhonov saved.
Tikhonov saved everything. Sometimes Average Fan cried for defibrillator, but Tikhonov was like a fortress.

Make a statue of Tikhonov. NOW.

Around the end of the period we put Zvezda’s goal under pressure, but either they blocked our hits or we just missed them out. The first period ended with 0:0.
Teams entered the second period even more combative. Our dominance was clear, we had a row of chances and there were points when fight almost lashed out.
Zvezda had some chances, too, once they hit the puck twice to our goal, but both attempts were too wide

cardial arrest, cerebral haemorrhage, screaming

then Krivov blocked one of their attempts with a genious movement.
We continued the aggressive dominance. Here it looked so that Zvezda can be dangerous only when they are in power play.
They scored their first goal from power play, of course. What is more, it was a double power play. There were barely 4 minutes left from the period, when the referees sent off Zubov and Brkušanin. Novaković took advantage of our weakened defense and with an evil grin he hit and scored. 0:1

Was it just me or did Zvezda-players really push Partizan-players on the ice just for fun, even when our player was not in action? And needless to say, referees didn’t give a damn. But when Ristić pushed a Zvezda-player to the pale, he immediately got a 2-minute-penalty. It happened not just once.

Only 2 minutes and 20 seconds were left, when Zvezda scored their second goal. It was an exceptional goal, because all Partizan-players were on the rink. Popravka hit the puck from the distance and it flew next to Tikhonov and fell into the net. 0:2
Less than two minutes were left, when all that you could see was Filipović getting into a fight with a Zvezda-player (it looked as if the red one would have said something rude to our player), he had to be carried away by teammates (even a referee joined). A bit later Milovanović was literally bulldozed by the opponent, he even had to leave the rink for a short while.
Then at the end of the period, when players were about to go back to the locker-room, hell broke loose. It was FIGHT, it was PARTIZAN RIOT!

(photo: Twitter)

(screenshots)

There’s nothing better than hitting the opponent’s head with his own helmet.

The teams got a tough welcome-back in the third period. Raging Grave Diggers were booing, hissing and chanting the song "Grmi pesma sad sa južne strane", sending it to all Zvezda-players, with lots of love, possibly.
While on the rink the two opponents got into a bitter, rude fight. Then, barely 7 minutes passed, when Zubov scored our first goal from power play. 1:2

Meanwhile it got into my attention that there are at least 6, but rather 7 sponsor logos on Zvezda’s jersey. Telekom Srbija, Arenasport, Lasta and others, while Partizan had only Big Pizza as their official supporter. By the way, Big Pizza is an excellent pizzeria in Pančevo, if you are there, you must try it. Our captain Marko Milovanović is the owner of the place.

Only 2 minutes passed, Zvezda scored their 3rd goal, in power play, what else (Brkušanin was suspended). Hell almost broke loose again, Novaković and Vlasov started to hit each other.
The game was about to end soon, barely 7 minutes were left, when Ristić scored our second goal (2:3). From then on we attacked with full force. We definitely wanted to equalize. Less than 5 minutes were left, when Zvezda could finally build up an attack, but their player fell on the ice just in the very last moment, in our goalmouth. The slow motion replay showed a Partizan-stick suddenly appearing right in front of the Zvezda-player’s feet, then the red dude obediently fell and slid away on his butt. The referee whistled, penalty shoot.
Novaković got the puck. He slid, shot...
...AND TIKHONOV SAVED!!! My God, Tikhonov saved a penalty!!! What a save it was!!!
For the rest of the game we attacked, but eventually we couldn’t equalize.

(photos: Facebook/Savez hokeja na ledu Srbije)

After the game

(photos: Twitter)

Highlights of the transfer season - part 2

This weekend is the re-start of the football season, it is high time to look through the further happenings of the transfer market. There had been a blogpost earlier about it, you can read it here.

The soap opera around Andrija Živković made the biggest upheaval during the transfer period. I wrote two individual blogposts about it. In the first you can read about the reasons behind as well as the media war between Ivica Iliev and the Živković family, while in the second you find details about Pini Zahavi (who is the main figure behind this long and painful drama), also you can see what kind of methods the team’s management tried to make Živković sign another contract.

Of course the Živković-saga hasn’t ended yet. The final episode (or at least the next season) will come some time in the beginning of the summer.

Andrija Živković at the match against Augsburg

On 17th January FK Partizan signed Ivory Coast player Cédric Gogoua. Gogua plays as a defender, he is 21 years old

though there had been rumours about his actual age. Some sources claimed he is at least 23 if not older, but there has been no confirmation, nor deny about it

and he signed to Partizan for 4 years.

Cédric Gogoua

(photo: Facebook/Fudbalski klub Partizan)

In the meantime there had been rumours about Zoran Milinković as well. The ex-head coach is allegedly still the employee of FK Partizan - but this time as a scout.

Partizan’s ice hockey team got five new players from Russia: 29-year-old Anton Zhukov, 25-year-old Alexander Vlasov, 26-year-old Aleksey Tifonov, 27-year-old Igor Zubov and 25-year-old Stepan Krivov.

Alexei Tikhonov

Alexander Vlasov

Anton Zhukov

Igor Zubov

Stepan Krivov

(photos: Facebook/Hokejaški klub Partizan (Fan page))

Meanwhile a very nerve-racking period of the transfer season started, titled as "should he stay or should he go"

like a twisted cover of the classic song by The Clash

around three players: Ivan Bandalovski, Valeri Bojinov and Aboubakar Oumarou.
For long it looked that Ivan Bandalovski must leave ul. Humska. Head coach Ivan Tomić allegedly made it clear that he does not need the Bulgarian defender, he is free to go wherever he wants. Yet some time in the first days of February the management changed their mind and quickly extended the contract with Bandalovski. So, Bandalovski will stay, his place is as solid as a piece of concrete.
Valeri Bojinov was on the list of an unnamed Chinese team. Partizan’s price for the Bulgarian striker was 2 million euros, the Chinese part offered 1 million. For quite a while it seemed, Partizan will still make a deal, but eventually the business failed to get done.
Bojinov in the meantime had a sad tour in the Serbian media claiming that he doesn’t want to leave Partizan at all, but he knows well that the club is in a very bad financial condition because of the Živković-case, and he certainly puts the team’s interest ahead of his own. But, sighed Bojinov, how much I would have wanted to win an eternal derby with Partizan and to score at least 12 goals in the season.

Well, you got the chance, meatball. But then keep on scoring those goals, because I fucking won’t have enough nerves to count your missed-out chances.

Yet it’s still not clear what happens to Aboubakar Oumarou. He also got an offer from China. The offer seemed to be very serious, the press even got informations about the alleged price (1,2 million euros), Aboubakar was told to pack his suitcases, because he is going to China.
Then he didn’t.
It was that time of the year when Chinese people celebrated the Lunar New Year. It’s the biggest holiday in China, it lasts at least for a week. The Chinese negotiator just said, they’d be back after the holiday season, then they disappeared. At Partizan the management was just shrugging being puzzled, then Iliev appeared in front of the press and said, all right, then Aboubakar stays at Partizan, because (citation!) the management carefully considered the interests of the team and they thought that it would definitely be for Partizan’s best interest if the Cameroonian stayed in Belgrade.

They obviously realized that if they sell Aboubakar, there will be only 2 (two) strikers left: Bojinov and Fofana, who just returned back from loan. There are two youngsters as well, 17-year-old Đorđe Jovanović and 16-year-old Dušan Vlahović, who are both extremely talented, but well, in some cases routine and experience are essential.

Only one day passed after Iliev’s announcement, when the Chinese negotiator sent their official offer for Aboubakar (price tag: 1 million euros). So, Iliev took a deep breath

I imagine how hard he could be sweating

stepped again to the journalists and announced that well, erm, ahem, you know, we may actually still sell out our Cameroonian player for a special bargain. That’s how things stand at the moment, as soon as there’s any more news, everyone will be informed.

The other big event of the transfer season was that Nikola Ninković signed to Italian team Genoa, but he was put immediately on loan to Chievo until the end of the season.
Partizan terminated the contract with several players. Nikola Trujić was discharged on 1st February. Fabricio was sent back to Brazil. Predrag Luka was also fired. Filip Knežević left by himself and signed to Čukarički. Among "black sheeps" only Živko Živković stayed at Partizan, but he is exiled to Teleoptik together with the other Živković, Andrija.
There were news about the possible selling of Vulićević, too - Turkish team Sivasspor wanted to buy him, but they couldn’t agree, as Iliev reported later. Russian team Rubin Kazan wanted to sign Marko Jevtović, but Partizan priced him to 2,5 million euros, and that was too much for the Russians.
Other than them there were those whom Partizan would have wanted to sign, but failed: Dino Ndlovu from South Africa (his club didn’t want to sell him), Seydouba Soumah from Guinea (no info about why this signing failed, it looked almost 100 % sure) as well as Léandre Tawamba from Cameroon (his team priced him for 1,25 million, that was too much for Partizan).

As a summary, 6 players arrived (Marko Jovanović, Bojan Šaranov, Nemanja Mihajlović, Luiz Everton, Cédric Gogoua + Fofana returned from loan) - 8 players left (Babović, Grbić, Fabricio, Šaponjić, Ninković, Trujić, Luka, Knežević) and two other players’ fate is still not clear (Andrija Živković, Aboubakar Oumarou). I do not say any predictions, we will see everything this weekend.
Until then here is a fresh, crispy team photo about FK Partizan.

(photo: partizan.rs)