How’s that for a double? Canberra Croatia chalked up a twenty-sixth Capital Football League Championship title when they clinched the National Premier League sealed with a 2-1 victory over nearest rivals Tigers FC at the Australian Institute of Sport in Round 20.
When Maxx Green accelerated away to slot home the winner, it culminated five months in which Croatian performance bordered on the sublime, teetered on the occasional brilliance, and were interspersed with some scrappy displays that more often than not still yielded a maximum return.
Green was exceptional. The early season signing from Gungahlin United, for whom he scored in the Charity Shield loss to O’Connor Knights, find the back of the net twenty-one times in all competitions, his fifteen league goals supplemented by half-a-dozen in the Cup including the brace that won the trophy against Queanbeyan City at McKellar Park.
In any other season his numbers would stack up to a Player of the year award, and yet they paled next to his team mate the enigmatic Thomas James. James scored sixteen times in the league, and twice in the cup, but it was his otherworldly twenty-three assists that beggared belief.
A true entertainer, his mature outings in Croatia colours marked James as a standout. Even then, he wasn’t alone. At the top of the field Nick Pratezina struck a team high, and Golden Boot winning nineteen goals, and Daniel Sparrow scored eight in the league, a great return for the industrious forward.
Early season promise was reflected in their march to June’s Australia Cup Qualifying Final. Fifty-one goals plundered in just eleven fixtures across both competitions. In only two games in that period did they fail to score four or more, a 3-0 home win over Monaro Panthers, and a 1-2 reverse away to Tigers FC.
After the Final, won in dramatic fashion through a goal created by substitute Jack Peraic-Cullen and finished off by Green, performances, perhaps unsurprisingly tapered off. A stunning 4-5 home reverse to a struggling Gungahlin United, and a 0-2 loss at the same Deakin Stadium venue to Monaro Panthers, posing questions for Dean Ugrinic and his coaching staff.
Amidst that downturn in form were a vital 3-2 win in the Derby against O’Connor Knights at Hawker Football Centre, and a 3-1 away win over a stubborn Queanbeyan City. A 6-2 revenge win over the Gunners more than offset the surprise of the season, a third loss at the usual fortress Deakin, this time to Yoogali SC.
Between the posts Sam Brown started, then retired to Sydney, only to return for the Australia Cup Round of 32 and latter stages of the NPL run-in, Jason Matesa and Jampel Dorji his understudies, whilst the make-up of the back-four has undergone many revisions.
The return of Matt Grbesa from suspension was a major plus. The grizzled veteran still exemplary whether operating alongside Daniel Subasic or Peraic-Cullen. In Grbesa, Ryan Keir, and Daniel Colbertaldo, there was a swathe of experience to play alongside the youthful talent.
The pre-season signatures of Marko Jadric and Nikola Jadric added to the midfield stocks, with Nicholas Subasic adding cover further back, the trio the only signings that Ugrinic made to a squad that lost several players to rival clubs. One of those, midfielder Michael Piccolo, returned in June.
This was a championship built around a core group. Seventeen players hit double figures for appearances, out of a squad of twenty-three players that donned the shirt this season. Some of those, Andrija Rakic, Anthony Rakic, and Ivica Majetic carrying on the tradition of players coming through the ranks given a chance to shine.
Fourteen players found the net, including rampaging fullback Riley Zsuzsa, and midfielder Keegan Vucetic, in team that top-scored in the NPL in 2025. That fact alone, coupled with a defensive wall that was tough to breach, were why Croatia were celebrating again in mid-August.
