Prva HNL Information & Prva HNL Links at HealthHaven.com

Prva HNL
Countries	Croatia
Confederation	UEFA
Founded	1992
Number of teams	16
Relegation to	Druga HNL
Level on pyramid	Level 1
Domestic cup(s)	Croatian Cup; Croatian Supercup
International cup(s)	UEFA Champions League; UEFA Europa League
Current champions	Dinamo Zagreb (2008–09)
Most championships	Dinamo Zagreb (11)
TV partners	HRT
Website	http://www.prva-hnl.hr
	2009–10 season

The T-Com Croatian First Football League (Croatian: T-Com Prva hrvatska nogometna liga or commonly T-Com Prva HNL or T-Com 1. HNL) is the top football league in Croatia.

[edit] Overview

The Prva HNL was formed in 1991, following the dissolution of the Yugoslav First League, and is operated by the Croatian Football Federation. The first season started in February 1992. Since its formation, the league went through many changes in its system and number of participating clubs. Currently, there are 16 teams participating in the league.

Each season of the Prva HNL starts in late July or early August and ends in May, with a two-month hiatus between December and February. Historically, the teams were split into two groups of six which continued to play separately starting in March. These two groups were known as the Championship League and the Relegation League. However, the 2006-07 season introduced a new system in which everybody plays everybody three times in the season. Upon the end of the first part of the season, consisting of 22 matchdays, a draw is held to pair the teams and decide host teams for the last 11 matchdays of the season. This system brought one additional matchday in comparison to the preceding seasons.

At the end of each season, the last team is directly relegated to the Druga HNL and the second-last team goes in the relegation play-off, a two-legged tie against the second-placed team from the Druga HNL. The champions qualify for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League, the runners-up, as well as the winners of the Croatian Cup, for the UEFA Cup qualifying, with the third-placed team winning a spot in the UEFA Intertoto Cup. The average attendance for the 07-08 season was about 2,838 per game. Altogether the attendance was 562,000. UEFA currently ranks the league 27th in Europe. The main sponsor of Prva HNL is T-Com, part of German mobile operator T-Mobile. The president of T-Com HNL is Igor Štimac.

[edit] HNL Teams in Champions League

Only three times in history have HNL teams entered the UEFA Champions League. In the 1994-95 season, Hajduk Split qualified over Legia Warsaw (1-0 A, 4-0 H). They qualified for the quarterfinals (from group with Benfica 0-0 H, 1-2 A, Steaua 1-0 A, 1-4 H, and Anderlecht 2-1 H,0-0 A), but lost to Ajax 0-0 H, 0-3 A. Ajax won CL that year. In the 1998-99 season, NK Croatia Zagreb (Dinamo) qualified over Celtic (0-1 A, 3-0 H). They were drawn in the same group with Olympiacos 1-3 A, 1-1 H, Porto 0-3 A, 3-1 H, and Ajax 1-0 A, 0-0 H. They finished in 2nd place, but failed to go to the next round because in that season only first place teams went through. Next season, 1999-2000, Dinamo also played in CL, in the same group as defending champion Manchester United, Olympique de Marseille and Austrian side FK Sturm Graz. They started their campaign with a famous 0-0 draw at Old Trafford. After that they lost to OM 0-1 in Zagreb, won against Sturm 3-0, lost against Sturm away 0-1, lost 0-2 against MU in Zagreb, and in the last match they drew against OM at Velodrome 2-2 (Bakayoko scored for Marseille in 91'). They finished fourth.

[edit] TV

In past, TV coverage was only for one match in each round (derby match). But in this season there were some changes. Croatian national TV Network (HRT) started new TV Show Volim Nogomet (I like football), made in association with League's main sponsor T-Com. In that show, 5 matches are watched combined on Sunday afternoons (during summer on night), while derby match is on programme at 20.15 CET, so TV-viewers can watch all matches. There are also experts in studio, commenting on matches and other things, football and non-football. Main iniciator of that project is famous Croatian football player (played for Hajduk Split, West Ham United and Derby County) and also president of T-Com 1. HNL Organisation Igor Štimac.

[edit] Before WWII

In 1940-41, Banovina Hrvatska had its own league.

1941 Hajduk Split

[edit] During World War II

Croatia previously had its own football league which operated from 1941 to 1944 (during the Independent State of Croatia 1941-1945). The Croatian Football Federation seems to recognize this league as being equivalent to the current Prva HNL, despite the fact that the territory covered by these leagues was not the same as of Croatia today, and that most of this was during World War II.

1942 Concordia Zagreb
1943 Građanski Zagreb

In the 1944 season, the final match between HAŠK Zagreb and SAŠK Sarajevo could not be played due to war complications, leaving no champion.

[edit] Winners and top scorers

Season	Champions ^[1]	Runners up	Third place	Top scorer(s)	Goals
1992	Hajduk Split	NK Zagreb	Osijek	Ardian Kozniku (Hajduk Split)	12
1992–93	Croatia Zagreb	Hajduk Split	NK Zagreb	Goran Vlaović (Croatia Zagreb)	23
1993–94	Hajduk Split	NK Zagreb	Croatia Zagreb	Goran Vlaović (Croatia Zagreb)	29
1994–95	Hajduk Split	Croatia Zagreb	Osijek	Robert Špehar (Osijek)	23
1995–96	Croatia Zagreb	Hajduk Split	Varteks	Igor Cvitanović (Croatia Zagreb)	19
1996–97	Croatia Zagreb	Hajduk Split	Hrvatski Dragovoljac	Igor Cvitanović (Croatia Zagreb)	20
1997–98	Croatia Zagreb	Hajduk Split	Osijek	Mate Baturina (NK Zagreb)	18
1998–99	Croatia Zagreb	Rijeka	Hajduk Split	Joško Popović (Šibenik)	21
1999–2000	Croatia Zagreb	Hajduk Split	Osijek	Tomislav Šokota (Croatia Zagreb)	21
2000–01	Hajduk Split	Dinamo Zagreb	Osijek	Tomislav Šokota (Dinamo Zagreb)	20
2001–02	NK Zagreb	Hajduk Split	Dinamo Zagreb	Ivica Olić (NK Zagreb)	21
2002–03	Dinamo Zagreb	Hajduk Split	Varteks	Ivica Olić (Dinamo Zagreb)	16
2003–04	Hajduk Split	Dinamo Zagreb	Rijeka	Robert Špehar (Osijek)	18
2004–05	Hajduk Split	Inter Zaprešić	NK Zagreb	Tomislav Erceg (Rijeka)	17
2005–06	Dinamo Zagreb	Rijeka	Varteks	Ivan Bošnjak (Dinamo Zagreb)	22
2006–07	Dinamo Zagreb	Hajduk Split	NK Zagreb	Eduardo (Dinamo Zagreb)	34 ^[2]
2007–08	Dinamo Zagreb	Slaven Belupo	Osijek	Želimir Terkeš (Zadar)	21
2008–09	Dinamo Zagreb	Hajduk Split	Rijeka	Mario Mandžukić (Dinamo Zagreb)	16

^[3] Dinamo Zagreb was renamed HAŠK Građanski in 1992. During the winter break of the 1992-93 season it changed its name again and started playing as Croatia Zagreb in March 1992. The club won 5 Prva HNL titles and participated in the 1998-99 and 1999-00 Champions League seasons bearing that name until they switched back to Dinamo Zagreb in mid-season in February 2000.

^[4] This is the record number of goals scored by any player in a single Prva HNL season.

[edit] Results by team

Club	Titles	Years won
Dinamo Zagreb	11	1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
Hajduk Split	6	1992, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2004, 2005
NK Zagreb	1	2002

[edit] All-time Prva HNL table

The All-Time Prva HNL Table is a cumulative record of all matches played since the inception of the Prva HNL, in 1992. The table is accurate from the 1992 season to the end of the 2008–09 season, inclusive.

P	Club	Ssn	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts	PPG	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
1	Dinamo Zagreb	18	564	385	101	78	1303	489	+814	1256	2.22	11	3	2
2	Hajduk Split	18	564	331	123	110	1061	512	+549	1116	1.97	6	9	1
3	NK Zagreb	18	564	232	144	188	814	701	+113	840	1.48	1	2	3	1
4	Osijek	18	564	230	132	202	818	770	+48	822	1.45			6	4
5	Rijeka	18	554	223	148	183	760	665	+95	817	1.47		2	2	5
6	Varteks	18	564	223	121	220	789	768	+21	790	1.40			3	2
7	Cibalia	16	490	145	140	205	526	670	−144	575	1.17
8	Slaven Belupo	12	386	145	101	140	465	476	−11	536	1.38		1		1
9	Šibenik	15	458	140	115	202	533	650	−117	536	1.17				1
10	Zadar	13	402	111	101	190	460	698	−238	434	1.07
11	Inter Zaprešić	11	330	111	81	138	393	467	−74	414	1.25		1		2
12	Hrvatski Dragovoljac	7	199	62	54	83	234	294	−60	240	1.20			1	1
13	Istra	7	201	58	46	97	198	295	−97	220	1.09
14	Kamen Ingrad	6	191	59	40	92	203	279	−76	217	1.13				1
15	Marsonia	6	176	50	40	86	204	293	−89	190	1.07
16	Segesta	5	146	49	39	58	178	188	−10	186	1.27
17	Međimurje	4	130	32	25	73	146	244	−98	121	0.93
18	Istra 1961	3	97	26	31	40	100	107	−7	109	1.12
19	Mladost 127	4	94	27	23	44	97	135	−38	104	1.10
20	Belišće	4	94	24	21	49	115	170	−55	93	0.98
21	GOŠK Dubrovnik	3	86	18	23	45	54	133	−79	77	0.89
22	Pomorac	2	62	19	15	28	78	93	−15	72	1.16
23	Čakovec	2	62	19	14	29	59	81	−22	71	1.14
24	Primorac	2	64	18	17	29	69	103	−34	71	1.10
25	Pazinka	2	64	15	20	29	71	95	−24	65	1.01
26	Radnik Velika Gorica	2	64	12	9	43	47	161	−114	45	0.70
27	Samobor	1	32	9	5	18	34	55	−21	32	1.00
28	Vukovar '91	1	33	7	9	17	32	56	−24	30	0.90
29	Dubrava	1	34	7	9	18	28	63	−35	30	0.88
30	Orijent	1	30	5	11	14	28	53	−25	26	0.86
31	Croatia Sesvete	1	33	6	8	16	31	66	−35	25¹	0.75
32	Neretva	1	30	4	11	15	20	44	−24	23	0.76
33	TŠK Topolovac	1	30	4	2	24	31	95	−64	14	0.46
34	Karlovac	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.00
35	Lokomotiva	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.00

¹ Croatia Sesvete were deducted 1 point for an unpaid transfer fee in the 2008–09 season.
P = Position; Ssn = Number of seasons; Pld = Matches played; W = Matches won; D = Matches drawn; L = Matches lost; GF = Goals for; GA = Goals against; GD = Goal difference; Pts = Points; Ppg = Points per game

Source: Clas Glenning's website

[edit] Awards

Sportske novosti Yellow Shirt award for Prva HNL Player of the Year

[edit] External links

Prva HNL website (Croatian)
HNL Results, Team Profiles and Standings
Croatian First League - all time table
Cronogomet.net - Croatian football news portal i forums (Croatian)

[1]

[2]

Contents