I’ve tweeted and pinned the tweet for readers to let me know if they have any request for any club – stadium they want me to make FICAZ INDEX first and one of twitter user and big football fan, Andrew, contacted me and asked to make it first for new Pampas stadium which have being build right now to replace the old Stadium Gradski Vrt, but since it is not yet done I can’t do that stadium FICAZ index yet, but we have agreed to make the INDEX for the old, still in use, stadium Gradski Vrt instead. Btw. Andrew is huge NK Osijek fan and you should follow him on twitter, account @arom_0.
At first I thought why would I do FICAZ INDEX for stadium which would be decommissioned in few months time, but on the second thought that is great idea to have both of them indexed, especially old one before new one is done. If the FICAZ index is low we might have some influence to where will TV broadcast camera be located, to have better index and better TV football experience and camera angle on new Pampas stadium. The old stadium Gradski Vrt was opened 1958 (yep, it is old) and upgraded several time as 1998 and 2005 and 2010.
Check out the grades and final FICAZ INDEX score bellow.
Camera Angle and Center Zoom
The west stand of Gradski Vrt stadium looks pretty big and high but main broadcast TV camera looks like is positioned between first and second level (unlike Stadion Maksimir where is on top of the second level) which is of course too lows and camera angle is obviously too low to get anything less than 10 points for camera angle criteria. if we compare it with other stadiums indexed so far, it is lower then Fulham (15 points) 
and Chelsea (20 points) but better than Bayern Munich (5 points). In zooming department, not a note worthy job by our cameraman “Mr. Franc Ožbolt-Cinober”. He is in par with Valencia and Chelsea scoring in this departments which means very low 2 points only. As you can see on the screencap above, he has been zooming in too much, and completely negate us visual access to larger part of the left side (attacking side) of the pitch, especially near attacking side which is not good TV experience if you a football fan who want to see more, and by more I mean, open players, a path to pass, a path to a long pass or a cross and to see at least partially a tactical layout of both teams.
Calculation:
Camera angle score for NK Osijek – Stadion Gradski Vrt = 10 points
Center Zoom score for NK Osijek – Stadion Gradski Vrt = 2 point
Zoom top (far side)
“Cinober” is not on his top game here also. Too much zoom in which results in only 3 points. If we want to compare, it is similar score in this criteria as San Siro Stadium and BayArena.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom FAR side for NK Osijek – Stadion Gradski Vrt = 3 points
Zoom bottom (near side)
In this criteria of zooming in proximity of near side of the pitch “Mr Cinober” is best so far. He is doing us favor by zooming out, what looks like up to the camera zoom out limit, which gives us a possibility to see wider perspective of the game, at least here. If we compare 4 points here, which is pretty good, it is the same result as Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (67 FICAZ index) which tell us there is a hope.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom NEAR side for NK Osijek – Stadion Gradski Vrt = 5 points
Zoom Corners
Corner zooming again pretty good job by “Cinober” and also exact score as Tottenham Hotspur Stadium which is valid 4 points. What is interesting that if we look just at FAR side corner FICAZ index score, it would be 2nd best ever score after FC Barcelona score, but if combine both near and far side corners, it is not that good but still solid 4 points.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom CORNER for NK Osijek – Stadion Gradski Vrt = 4 points
Extra points
And now here is most important part of the scoring (just in case for NK Osijek) because this old stadium will be soon replaced by new one and that means we need to influence somehow location of TV camera to be better positioned than this one. Before we get to that, let me say why I am giving 2 points for HREN Bonus even it is obvious that there is nothing here of gizmos or gadget what would justified that score. There is one thing which is pretty rare in European stadium (more common in South America). And that is loose saggy nets, which is (most people would agree) and more like nostalgia to old ’80 and ’90 European football when saggy nets were standard. 
Now days most of stadium have too tense nets and it is not a cool thing to enjoy a goal (especially Goal like this one fantastic goal on the screen-cap on the left, scored by NK Osijek footballer Laszlo Kleinheisler against Hajduk 2:0 (2.6.2021)) when a ball bounces back from the net right away like nothing happened 🤔. In case there net is is saggy you can see how a ball stays inside the goal and rolls over loose net 🤩🤩🤩. Beautiful sights. Lets hope they will use saggy net on new Pampas Stadium too.
Now we are talking again about the new stadium where we hope camera angle would be higher and TV experience with that better, but my concern is (by seeing proposed rendered photos of new stadium and reading an info about size and capacity of 15.000 people) that stadium would be small and the stands would be very small and low height (roof=22.5m) and there would be no way (let’s hope I am wrong on this) to physically have highest position (near skyboxes) which means the best seat in the house for the TV camera as we hope, like it is at Stadion Maksimir. Not sure if it is too late to influence somebody who already made or will make that decision for NK Osijek.
Calculation:
Extra points (max. 16 points) = 2 points
Points summary
| Criteria | Points | Max. |
| Camera Angle | 10 | 50 |
| Zoom Center | 2 | 10 |
| Zoom Far – Top | 3 | 8 |
| Zoom Near – Bottom | 5 | 8 |
| Corner | 4 | 8 |
| Extra | 2 | 16 |
| FICAZ Index | 26 | 100 |
NK Osijek
Stadion Gradski Vrt
FICAZ INDEX = 26
Tell us in the comments what you think. Thanks for taking the time to contribute. Let’s enjoy in every fracking football game around the planet like it is Barca game, every game.
Mario Hren
Links and contacts for this FICAZ Index:
Club website for contact: https://nk-osijek.hr/kontakt/
Email:
