Hull City Before the Championship play-off final at Wembley, manager Sergej Zakirovic admitted he still did not know how many tickets he would need.
24 Sata has an interview with the Hull manager today. He discusses his joy in making people happy, the upcoming Wembley final and the difficulties of adapting to the Championship.
Hull City’s unexpected success
Hull City will face Southampton in the play-off final later this month and are hoping to return to the Premier League for the first time since relegation in 2017.
This was a position few predicted they would be in at the start of the season, but a superb final day saw them into the play-offs ahead of Wrexham. A win over Millwall will now take them through to the final.
Zakirovic now admits even he didn’t see it coming, he predicted 10th to 15th Ended this season.
“It was my 51st game of the season,” He said.
“The goal was to be in the top 10, when it started, I thought we would be between 10th and 15th place. But we started the season slowly, while we got used to it, while people got to know each other, the players, or our work, as we see it.
“Since October we pushed ourselves up and have been in the playoffs the whole time, so far in the last two rounds.”
Immediate effect in England
The 49-year-old has made an immediate impact at Hull City since taking charge in July last year. This is his first job in England.
His earlier career was varied, including spells at NK Sesvete, HNK Gorica, NK Maribor, Zrinjski Mostar, HNK Rijeka, GNK Dinamo Zagreb and Kayserispor.
Prima facie, he appears to have adapted completely to England. But he admits that it is not easy.
“I can’t explain to people how hard it is, it’s a completely different football, you adapt literally every three days,” He added.
“One team plays you through the structure of the game, the other hits long balls behind your back. You always have to prepare, and you don’t have time. You can’t train anything, it’s just video analysis and that’s it.”
Wembley on the horizon
To this day, he is thoroughly enjoying his time at Hull. Reaching the play-off final in their first season is certainly no small feat. It was certainly not on his or the club’s agenda, as he has already admitted. It’s a situation he’s still getting his head around.
“I don’t know how many tickets I will need, but it has already started. We will see how many are available and try to secure as many as possible.” He concluded.
“A lot of people follow, send messages before and after the game. After the game, there were really a lot of messages, I thank everyone for the messages and congratulations.
“But I said we are not finished yet, we need to finish the job. It’s an unbelievable thing that we are 90 or 120 minutes away, I don’t know how long it will be, away from the Premier League. Especially in our circumstances.
“Everything that’s caught us, everything we’ve gone through this season, it was an impossible mission. But here we are, we’ve shown ourselves.”
On what happened after the semi-final win, the Hull City manager explained that there was a late win, followed by another early lead.
“I slept maybe four hours. Went to bed late, got to the hotel late because I had a lot of commitments after the game. I went to bed around 3 o’clock English time and woke up around 7, 8.”
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