Hull City manager Sergej Jakirović has opened up ahead of their Championship Play-Off final at Wembley, admitting he still doesn’t know how many tickets he’ll need.
24 Sata have an interview with the Hull manager today. He discusses his joy at making people happy, the upcoming Wembley final and the difficulties of adapting to the Championship.
Hull City’s unforeseen success
Hull City take on Southampton in the Play-Off final later this month looking to book a return to the Premier League for the first time since relegation in 2017.
It was a position few had predicted that they would be in at the start of the season, but a superb final day saw them sneak into the Play-Offs ahead of Wrexham. A win over Millwall now has them in the final.
Jakirović now admits that even he didn’t see it coming, having predicted a 10th to 15th placed finish 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 rather our work, as we see it.
“Somewhere since October we catapulted ourselves upwards and were in the playoffs the whole time, until now in the last two rounds.”
Immediate impact in England
The 49-year-old has made an immediate impact at Hull City since taking charge in July last year. It’s his first job in England.
He’s previously had a varied career, with spells at NK Sesvete, HNK Gorica, NK Maribor, Zrinjski Mostar, HNK Rijeka, GNK Dinamo Zagreb and Kayserispor.
On the face of it, he appears to have adapted to England completely. But he admits that is hasn’t been easy.
“I can’t explain to people how hard it is, this is a completely different football, you adapt literally every three days,” he added.
“One team plays you through the game’s construction, the other just shoots 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
He’s very much enjoying his time in Hull to date. A Play-Off final in his first season is certainly no mean feat. It certainly wasn’t on the agenda for him, or the club, as he’s already admitted. It’s a situation he’s still getting his head around.
“I don’t know how many tickets I’ll need, but it’s already started. We’ll see how many are available and we’ll 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 that we are not finished yet, we need to finish the job. It is an incredible thing that we are 90 or 120 minutes, I have no idea how long it will be, away from the Premier League. Especially in our circumstances.
“Everything that has caught us, everything that we have gone through this season, it was an impossible mission. But here we are, we showed ourselves.”
On what happened after the semi-final victory, the Hull City manager explained it was a late one, followed by another early rise.
“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 3am English time and woke up around 7, 8am.”
