Osijek vs Gorica Prediction: Osijek must win

In the HNL this weekend, the leading teams have slightly easier opponents, but an interesting clash is being played in the fight for fourth place, with Osijek and Gorica in the main role. The home team under coach Zoran Zekic failed to match Rijeka, Hajduk, or Dinamo this season, but it is certainly expected to join them in the European qualifiers next summer. With the Portuguese Jose Boto as the new sporting director, a breakthrough should come in the future, but for now, Osijek are still struggling. Gorica on the other hand had an amazing first part of the season, and now they are on a losing streak of 5 matches in the league.

Form: LDWWD

It was bad, really bad in Pula against Istra in the last round. Everyone in the club must be aware of this and work to ensure that something similar does not happen again in the future. Defeat as defeat is not the worst thing in everything, but the kind of performance that Osijek wants to forget as soon as possible. I expect redemption in the next match and that must be a motivation for all the players and the coaching staff. The followers who are "shooting" for fourth place are close to Osijek. Lokomotiva are two points behind, and even Gorica, despite a series of bad results in the rest of the season, are not far behind - four points, same as Slaven Belupo.

Form: LLLLD

Gorica do not know for a victory for a long time after they achieved some unexpected victories in the first part of the season, but they are still near 4th place mostly because Osijek did not manage to catch a longer wave of positive results with which they would have detached from the others. At the moment, it looks like the fight for fourth place will last until the very end of the season and will be interesting as the title race. Gorica will be without M. A. Juris who accumulated yellow cards, which is another headache for the manager. It’s a huge blow for this team, knowing that the problem of Gorica is simply the lack of quality on the bench. The results in the first part of the season actually exceeded expectations. However, Sven Blummel and Tim Matavz can still do something in the attack, as well as the young Nikola Vujnovic, who proved to be one of the key players of this team.

Both teams are coming into this match with a lot of pressure. Osijek are playing below expected and below their potential and it will be a disaster for them if they don’t finish in the top 4. However, Gorica, Lokomotiva and now Slaven Belupo are reducing the gap, and now Osijek are under big pressure to perform well and earn points. In the last round, they lost against Istra and everyone is talking about their lack of strength, passion, and aggression to at least try to win. Maybe a match against terrible Gorica is the best thing for Osijek right now, and I expect of them to perform well and win this match confidently with several goals difference.