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NK Slaven Belupo welcome HNK Hajduk Split to Koprivnica on Friday evening in the HNL, with the visitors arriving as the clear favourites on paper but not quite with the swagger of a runaway title challenger. Hajduk are second in the table on 59 points and still chasing the kind of finish that keeps pressure on the leaders, while Slaven sit fifth on 36 points and are trying to steady a season that has flattened out badly in recent weeks. One side is thinking about the top end of the table. The other just wants to stop the slide.
There’s a bit of context worth keeping in mind here. Hajduk have spent the campaign as one of the league’s strongest travelling sides and they’ve made life awkward for Slaven for a long time now. Slaven, though, are no soft touch in Koprivnica; their home record is respectable enough and they usually find a way to stay in games there. That tension is why this feels more than a simple formality. Hajduk should carry the greater quality, but if they let Slaven settle, this could get sticky. That won’t be ideal for the away bench.
Slaven’s recent run has been bleak, and there’s no pretty way of dressing it up. Their last six matches have produced just two draws and four defeats, and the sense is of a team that keeps competing without ever quite landing the punch. They lost 2-1 away to NK Varaždin on 12 April in a match that was closer than the scoreline suggests, having traded goals and stayed in range until the late stages. Before that came a 2-0 defeat away to HNK Rijeka in the cup, then a 2-0 home loss to Rijeka in the league. The 0-0 with NK Osijek on 22 March was at least a point earned, not a point dropped, but it was followed by the 4-2 defeat at Dinamo Zagreb and a 1-1 cup draw with Lokomotiva. Seven games without a win is the headline. It’s not a great one.
The deeper worry for Mario Gregurina is that Slaven’s home output hasn’t been enough to offset their broader problems. Their league record at home stands at seven wins, three draws and four defeats, with 20 goals scored and 17 conceded. That’s solid rather than commanding. At their own ground they’ve usually been competitive, yet they haven’t looked like a side that can simply open teams up on demand. Only one league goal in the last two home matches — both against Rijeka and Osijek — tells its own story. Slaven can be organised and awkward, but they’ve lost their edge in the final third. When you’re not scoring freely, the pressure on the back line just keeps rising.
There is a small counterpoint. The 1.14 xG they managed at Varaždin was decent enough, and the shot count there was even at 14 apiece. So they’re not being completely shut out of matches. They’re just not converting enough of the moments they do create, and that’s a nasty place to be against one of the league’s better away teams. If Slaven are to make this a contest, they’ll need a faster start than they’ve been producing. Sitting back and hoping won’t do it.
Hajduk arrive with far more confidence, even if their last six also contain a couple of dents. The key difference is that their defeat to Dinamo Zagreb and the 3-2 cup loss at Rijeka now feel like isolated setbacks rather than signs of a wider wobble. Since then, Gonzalo García’s side have responded well. They beat Lokomotiva 2-1 at home, then went to Istra 1961 and came away with a 3-1 win, before producing the most eye-catching result in that stretch — a 6-0 demolition of Vukovar 1991 away from home. Last weekend, they squeezed past HNK Gorica 1-0 in Split. That’s four wins in a row in the league. That matters.
Away from home, Hajduk have been excellent by HNL standards. Their league record on the road is eight wins, three draws and three defeats, with 25 goals scored and only 13 conceded. That’s a proper top-side away return. They don’t just nick points on the road; they usually impose themselves. The 3-1 win at Istra and the six-goal burst at Vukovar show a team with enough attacking variety to punish weaker defences, while the 1-0 over Gorica last time out showed they can also grind when the game gets awkward. That balance is why they’re sitting second rather than merely hanging around the top four.
Marko Livaja’s early strike against Gorica was enough to settle that one, and the numbers from the match were tidy: 15 shots to five, 6-2 on target, 1.41 xG to 0.17. That’s the shape of a side that controls territory and limits danger. Still, this isn’t a team that shuts everyone out. Hajduk have conceded in three of their last six, and the 3-2 cup defeat at Rijeka is a reminder that they can be stretched when the tempo rises. They’re better than Slaven, clearly. But they’re not immune to giving up a chance or two, especially if the game opens up.
This fixture has leaned Hajduk’s way for a long time. Their most recent meeting, on 7 February 2026, ended in a 2-0 home win for Hajduk, and that result fits the pattern of the broader rivalry. Hajduk have gone unbeaten in the last 18 meetings listed in the database, which is a brutal run by any measure. Slaven have also found it hard to even get on the board in this match-up, with six recent meetings in which Hajduk kept a clean sheet.
The scorelines tend to stay tight, though. Five of the last six head-to-head meetings have finished with fewer than 2.5 goals, and Slaven’s strongest hope here is probably to drag the game into that kind of narrow, low-margin contest. The problem is that Hajduk have usually scored first in this fixture and then managed it well from there. That’s the kind of pattern that keeps biting the same team.
Both Teams To Score at 5/6 looks the right call here. It’s not a free hit, because Hajduk’s head-to-head edge and recent clean-sheet record against Slaven can’t be ignored, but the pricing feels fair given how often Slaven do just enough at home to ask questions. They’ve scored 20 league goals at their own ground this season, and even in a poor run they’ve still created enough to nick a goal in awkward spots. Hajduk, for their part, have the firepower to score at least once almost by default.
The 1-2 correct-score call fits the shape of the match. Hajduk look likelier to win, and their away record says they should be able to break Slaven down, but Slaven’s home habits keep this from screaming shutout. If you want a slightly safer alternative, Hajduk to win and both teams to score is the obvious angle. Still, BTTS feels the cleaner play. Slaven should get one chance. Hajduk should get more than one.
