Istra 1961 vs Hajduk Split Prediction: Istra are always tough opponent for Hajduk

The 16th round of the SuperSport HNL continues on Sunday, starting at 5:00 p.m. at Aldo Drosina in Pula, during which the second-to-last Istria welcomes the current leader Hajduk Split. Istra somehow managed to win two matches in a row, while Hajduk are in 1st place but the pressure is big on them, especially since both Rijeka and Dinamo Zagreb won in their matches on Saturday. Hajduk must win, but Istra seems better recently and we can expect an interesting match in this local derby.

Form: DWWLD

Last season, under the leadership of top expert Gonzalo Garcia, Istra were one of the main hits of the championship, but after changing the coach and reshuffling the team last summer, this year they are not even close to last season's results. At the moment, they are in penultimate place with statistically the second-worst defense in the league, but what can encourage them to some extent are two celebrations over direct competitors for relegation, Slaven Belupo and Rudes, before the break. That, at least in our opinion, is their ceiling at the moment because they simply don't have the quality to complicate things for top teams like Hajduk.

Form: WWWWW

The return of Mislav Karoglan to the hot Split’s bench proved to be a complete success. Including the cup match against the lower league team, Karoglan is still Mister 100% with a total of five wins from the same number of matches, and it is interesting that he remained undefeated in his first term on the bench of Split. Today, we believe that with the recovered Rokas Pukstas and Marko Livaja, who is finally getting in shape, they will take all three points from Drosina against the team that Karoglan briefly coached at the beginning of the season. He certainly knows the players and opportunities at Istra very well, which will be an added plus for Hajduk in today's visit.

They say that Hajduk are losing in the race for the title in the so-called "small" matches, but we are convinced that they will celebrate this Sunday at Drosina and continue to move towards the much-desired title. The team from Split are comimg to this visit with their statistically best defense in the league, so we decided on a combination that the guests would celebrate and that we would not see more than 3.5 goals in the match.