NK Osijek has completely lost its identity on the field, which is the first thing that needs to be restored. Another tough and gloomy season is behind NK Osijek. For the second year in a row, the Whites and Blues have given their fans worries about their top-flight status. Last year, they fell into that position with a series of poor results in the second part of the championship, and now they have been in trouble from the very beginning of the championship and have been leading a demanding battle to escape from the bottom. Did it have to be that way? No. However, a combination of circumstances and wrong decisions led to a complete collapse on the field. But in the first place, we simply have to put the injuries. They have decimated the team's potential to the point where it's hard to remember a time when there weren't at least five or six players out of action. And that was a big problem for coach Simon Rožman, who had to change his tactics due to injuries. Namely, in the recently completed season at Opus Arena, they managed to win only four times, which is an unprecedentedly poor achievement in HNL. At the beginning, it was not possible to predict such an outcome. Osijek started playing interesting football with coach Simon Rožman. The game was fast, opportunities were created, there was content, as he liked to say, but what was missing was the most important thing - goals. Maybe because Arnel Jakupović missed the first matches due to injury, maybe just because of bad luck, but Osijek played good football in the first round of the championship. But because of that problem with realization, Rožman gave up on the attacking style of play and soon - failed. He was replaced by Željko Sopić, whose mandate was marked by numerous injuries that forced him to constantly experiment and look for unconventional methods. He failed to bring the desired progress. He stayed on the bench for five months and during that period, Osijek won only once. So, he was replaced by Tomislav Radotić at the end of February, who managed to record five wins, stabilized the team, at one point it seemed like the Whites and Blues were on the rise and would reach the middle of the table, but the magic suddenly disappeared because Osijek was not able to win at home. In the end, everything turned into an exhausting wait for confirmation of their top-flight status, which happened only two rounds before the end, and it could have, and should have happened much earlier. On that path, Osijek became a team that no one fears, which is perhaps the biggest loss. Meanwhile, there were also tectonic changes in the club's organization, as after five and a half years, president Ferenc Sakalj and director Vladimir Čohar resigned. Their departure was greeted with enthusiasm by the fans, and a young and ambitious president, Alexandra Vegh, took over the club. Her arrival should mark the beginning of a new era for NK Osijek. A lot of things will change, there's no doubt about that. The budget will be smaller, new people will come, but all that doesn't necessarily mean a step back. NK Osijek will face the Jewish curse 'if only we had, we wouldn't have', but if things are handled wisely, if a good plan is made, maybe it will be possible to avoid disaster. But for now, it's too early to talk about that. Now we need to look at what will happen in the preparation period and how the team will prepare for the new season. So, NK Osijek must start from scratch and find a new identity, and that will be a difficult task for the new management and coach.