#1 Mind Over Money: Dinamo Zagreb defeat Chelsea 1-0 at Maksimir.
Chelsea spent over a quarter billion dollars on new players this summer transfer window. Dinamo Zagreb spent 7 million. Yet, the London Killer – Mislav Oršić – scored the game’s lone goal in a heroic Dinamo victory to open their Champions League campaign. Full story and highlights HERE.
#2 Luka Modrić can’t stop, won’t stop.
Luka Modrić turns the ripe ‘ol age of 37 this Friday, September 9th. Most football players have already retired at this point in their careers or are transitioning into coaching. Not Luka. He’s blasting ‘outside the foot’ bombs into the back of the net during Champions League fixtures. What a privilege to cover this man’s career.
#3 Another Perišić assist at Spurs!
You will be hearing this a lot in North London this season: “Cross by Perišić…Goooooal Spurs! Spurs were held scoreless for 75 minutes Wednesday night against manager Igor Tudor and 10-man Marseille. Then Perišić whipped in a perfect cross to Richarlison for the header. The Brazilian would bag another for a 2-0 Spurs win to open their Champions League campaign. Perišić hit Richarlison with the cross today. But you can safely predict he will get in at least 10 connections to Kane for goals this season.
Kind of reminds me of the wasted talent of “veliki žuti” Robert Prosinečki. I always wondered how his career could have gone if he dedicated himself to training instead of drinking and smoking (I have nothing against that, but a top level athlete needs to give these things up to excel)
Considering how much Brozović runs in a game, I was surprised to find out that he actually smokes
There is great photo that came online in early summer showing him in the hallway after a game sitting on the floor smoking a cigar.
https://football-italia.net/image-inter-star-brozovic-celebrates-win-over-france-in-style/
It would explain why he eventually get as tired as he does. Now imagine if he didn’t smoke how much better he would be.
What are you on about? He had a phenomenonal career and played for both Madrid and Barcelona in his 30s during an era where success at that age was pretty rare. The only thing that held him back was the filthy communist transfer rule that kept players around through their prime.
Nevermind. Math is not my friend tonight.
Yes, he had a great career, but he could have been the best in the world if he focused more on his health. His career was also riddled with injuries.
Was in Glasgow many moons ago to see Scotland v. Croatia and the tabloids were carrying on that Prosinecki was seen at the hot dog stand before the game. I don’t know, but I love that shit lol. He’s a natural.
many people all over social media have been asking how Dinamo, a team worth barely over 100 million euros can beat a team like Chelsea thats worth BILLIONS…if you ask me I’d say this. All professionals have worked hard to get to where they are but some have more natural talent than others….those that do have that extra talent and can CONSISTENTLY (thats the differentiator) provide top class performances will usually come out on top.
When you’re at the level of Ristovski, Livakovic, Ivanusec, Ljubicic….the one thing that gets you from a lower tiered club to a bigger tiered club is having consistent good games. If we look at guys who are just a little higher level players….they’ve had better consistency at their lower tiered clubs and were eventually sold to better teams in a better league….NOW, ARE THEY STILL CONSISTENTLY GOOD? Lets look at Brekalo, Vlasic, Majer, Gvardiol, Juranovic, Sosa….. there’s a different story for each of these players but overall, we know that Gvardiol, Sosa, Juranovic, Majer have all been consistently well at their clubs but what about Ivanusec, Brekalo, Vlasic…..this is the key example to why some guys are worth more than others and why some get to a much higher league. They can all play BUT, they all aren’t equally consistent and some guys just become better with age (26 years and older). Then there’s the “talent” factor that some special players have…ie…Perisic, Modric, Rakitic, Mandzukic…the type of guys that can change the outcome of a game and the one thing they all have in common is that they’re CONSISTENTLY good…very few bad games!
When a team like Dinamo beat Chelsea its because every player on the team has concentrated for the entire 90 minutes. They were competitive and made every single effort to win each challenge. Chelsea should have those extra “talented” type of players that make the difference but when those guys don’t step up….anyone can win a game as long as their disciplined and concentrated.
I felt sure that Hajduk was going to win one of their two games vs Villarreal because they have the fan support that give energy…the problem was, none of their “better” players stepped up!
As you say they played as a team. Incredible how the back line of Dinamo shut them down. Adjemi pLayed his heart out and Orsic was on fire. I’m still pumped over this game.
At work all these English guys told me Dinamo will get destroyed. Past few days they have been in a pissed off mood. 😂
We’re also lucky that Livaković didn’t need to make any saves, and the one late shot he did save was within an arm’s reach of him.
He got bailed out on that offside call where the opposing player waltzed right past him as he attempted to stop him like an old man bending over to pick up a cane. Any other keeper probably intercepts that (considering how close he was to the ball), but he is deathly afraid of contact and it was concerning to see how poor that effort was. Not even an attempt to dive.
[cue Slavonac defending Livaković now]
😉
I’m ok with you being compulsive, it never stops with you so I’ve learned to live with it. At least you’ve stopped pumping Vlasic’s tires for a couple of months.
You see things about Livakovic that nobody else sees. Apparently (I’m not sure if this is true) he was in the Champions League team of the week! Funny how that’s possible and yet you found him to be pitiful! It’s a wonder how we see things that nobody else sees when we blind ourselves!
Slavo how many great or even GOOD saves has livakovic made in the last few years ?
His theatrics on an easy save are beyond ridiculous as well…not sure if you’ve noticed?
He’s a baby lamb in the box and will be greatly exposed in due time!
I’m with Maminjo100% on this one!
Pero, he’s made tons of phenomenal saves over the years. We all felt Lovre Kalinic might be the better choice than Livakovic and then we are reminded why Liva is better…because Kalinic gets 10 goals scored on him in 3 games while Liva might get 3 or 4. If Livakovic wasn’t the #1 goalie in Croatia right now why else do you think he’s starting for Dinamo and the National Team…Mamic? do you think he’s got photos of the management with hookers?
Livakovic is really bad with his feet and he is not great on crosses and yet he’s ahead of Kalinic, Ivusic and the rest of Croatia’s potential goalies….not in my books but in anyone’s books that matter….ask yourself why?
you guys (Maminjo and his cheerleaders 😉 ) tend to complain a lot but you never dig deeper and ask the follow up questions.
going back to last season and early this season I’ve also seen this with the constant bombardment of getting Vlasic and Brekalo on the field. I’d make comments suggesting they both “aren’t effective” and yet soo many of our commenters ignored their inconsistent and poor play and kept mentioning how they deserve to play and why we don’t see them UNTIL finally at one point it was realized that FUCK…they were sucking ass and didn’t deserve it WELL, if all you can do is keep busting balls about Livakovic and yet his replacements weren’t any better…wtf are you guys mentioning them?
Livakovic is ahead of our other keepers largely because of seniority.
He was already on the National Team with Subasic and Kalinic. The order was Subasic, Kalinic and Livakovic. First one retired, second one had a horrible career breakdown, and (by default) our main option became Livakovic.
For a new keeper to come in and break Dalic’s predetermined seniority sequence, any new keeper would have to regularly play well AND Livakovic would have to play poorly, for him to lose his spot.
This actually happened last year, which is why Dalic was trying out Ivusic and Grbic over the past year, despite Livakovic still playing first team football for Dinamo.
Unfortunately, Ivusic got injured and needed surgery (and has been a bit slow to come back) which is the sole reason that saved Livakovic from losing his spot.
Grbic choking in that one game against PSG cost him his starting spot with us too.
We’re in a bad spot with goalkeeping now.
It takes A LOT for Dalic to make changes and even though a recovering Ivusic may be a mediocre option, it’s still better than Livakovic. But Dalic won’t take that risk because he’d look stupid making the change if Ivusic plays poorly. Whereas if he sticks with Livakovic, he can always just make the claim that there were no other options (even though he didn’t really exhaust our other options yet).
We should be extensively reviewing all of our goalkeepers options right now (Kotarski, Kahlina, Labrovic, Ivusic, Nevestic, Pandur, etc.)
Kotarski starts for PAOK. Why no callup? Why does Dalic need a YEAR of runway before calling someone new?
Kotarski starting in the Greek League as a 22 year-old is much, much more valuable than a 32 year old starting in the HNL (who has already had a history of breakdowns).
Why does Kalinic continue to get callups if he’s having bad seasons?
Why does it take such a long time for Dalic to make a change, even to our ‘backup’ keeper?
Surely he can make an exception for a position of need, this close to the World Cup?
Nope. He’d rather avoid making tough decisions and stick with the status quo.
We need to get Danijel Nizic ( 27 , 6’6″ ) from Sydney United 58 as our Goalie. He has matured and ready since his teenage years at Burley in the Championship! Surely there is a scouting report by our HNS on this Guy. NOT! Lets set the narrative; urge all to watch the game on Saturday and see how he does. He has energy, presence and quick reflexes. Iggy scouting report perhaps? 🙂
Family member or agent?
Right! lol Not at all. LOL Diaspora can be good eyes and ears for the Croatian Soccer Team. If you are American, Canadian, Australian… you grow up being confident in sports in aggressivity, positioning, presence. attitude. calmness. . ( Football / Basketball / Hockey ) Hmmm; great qualities for a Goalkeeper naturally built in the psyche due to those sports in the diaspora…. Basic foot skills if you are Croatian is kinda in the Genes. Nizic is a great example from Australia and I am sure there are more here in the USA and Canada. Possibly in Argentina, Peru..I mean seriously we are everywhere…we can do better I am sure. Question: Where did the coaching go for this position? 6’6″ is like almost a standard height…Waterpolo! LOL
Ha ha!
You see that Vlasic is coming back hard, and are getting some PTSD on some potential Vlasic pumping coming up the pipeline.
It’s coming, you can’t hide from it. 🙂
Re: Livakovic…
Please don’t cite any Champions League team-of-the-week bullshit award.
The Dinamo win was seen as a massive upset, so they need to include Dinamo players in it (even though it was a team effort and not an individual one).
They probably based it off the fact that he managed a ‘clean sheet’ so that’s good enough.
But we all know that ‘clean sheet’ was managed by the Dinamo players (and not by some individual effort from Livakovic).
I’ll grant him credit for that late save, but that was a reflex-save on the line (which is his biggest strength).
Otherwise, he’s still doing the stupid things he’s always doing, which includes him being scared to death of leaving his line for anything.
There were multiple balls that passed through or sailed over his six-yard box throughout the game.
He wasn’t a factor in any of them, and he was extremely lucky that Chelsea either messed up on each of those players, or a defender bailed him out.
He’s not going to reflex-save any chances from a Chelsea player that is taken from the six-yard box. Not sure what he is thinking by gluing himself on that line with complete fear of diving or punching that ball out.
Even that offside goal was a disaster. He tried to bend over to intercept the pass to the offside player by picking it up mid-pass? What the hell is he thinking?
Dive and smother that shit!
He was so close to it, and if that Chelsea forward wasn’t in an offside position, Livakovic would’ve looked like a fool letting such a weak pass get by him.
He was scared of diving near an opposing player’s feet, because he’s scared shitless about getting accidentally kicked.
This is the reason why Livakovic cannot start for us.
He’s literally scared to death of any contact, and is willing to just rely on our defenders to prevent every single shot attempt (and pass attempt) in our box.
Maminjo, I’m asking you if you can say why someone else is deserving of the #1 spot, we all know his weaknesses. I’m not arguing he deserves to be our top goalie but I am asking who’s currently or recently better?
Ivušić, Labrović and (now) Kotarski deserve at least some minutes in the next few Nations League and friendly games.
I wouldn’t treat this as “who’s the number 1” right now.
We have a handful of games and about 3-4 keepers who are all in the same ballpark…but we only really have a lot of data on one of them (Livaković). We need more on Ivušić and possibly Kotarski right now.
Id be watching all their club games right now if I were Dalić.
Sorry Slavonac, I have agreed on some other points with you, and you may have even turned my perspective around with both Orsic and Petkovic. But I fully back Maminjo on this one.
And it has nothing to do with what team Livakovic plays for, I could care less. He just does not have the confidence and skill to push the team forward and to step up in those moments where he needs to. I am just confused why so many northern Croatian pundits think that he is so good. I am at a loss for that. When discussing Orsic, Majer, Petkovic even, it all makes some sense to me at this stage base don the progress those players have made. But there barely seems to be any with Livakovic.
It pains to admit this but I agree with 100% of what Maminjo has just stated.
He instills no confidence in his team or the fans,there is no denying that.
Great point on him making team of the week based on the other 10 busting their ass all game.
I would still pick IV IV all day long over pretty boy.
Accept the pain, my son.
We will journey to Valhalla together, shiny and chrome.
Mate1, Maminjo and Branko, I’m always open minded and in this case maybe I just don’t know enough about our other options in Greece or elsewhere…I’m just tired of the constant same barrage of criticism and no replacement or backup options to discuss. I have played this game like many of you and I do know that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t get overly excited about our goalie options because I truly haven’t seen anyone who’s obviously great or just good! I have seen Ivusic and was hopeful for him but even he has had some bad games, L Kalinic is fragile mentally so who’s next…someone that doesn’t get minutes at his club in Spain? I didn’t know about the goalie from Greece!
…also guys, I have watched almost every single HNL game going back to last season and I’ve seen some decent goalies here and there but nobody that is clearly our #1 guy!
That is precisely the problem. There is noone who is out #1 guy, Slavonac. But then that kind of lends itself.to case of trying someone new I think. Now maybe there is something to these other keepers some are mentioning but you don’t know until your try. I think that is precisely what the Nations League is for. It just seems that Dalic is unwilling to take this chance, especially in an area that is our teams weakness where we do not have a strong and suitable option.
I understand the argument to keep Livakovic in the World Cup somewhat if there is a fear to put someone in, but he really shouldn’t be playing any of the games in the Nations League and I think this is where Dalic can be blamed. Why not try new players on these games it is how you experiment and try. I know the result won’t be as good but atleast we hopefully find someone who clicks.
Dude, as soon as I saw that Vlasic scored again this week I immediately said he’s starting to convince me…I am open minded and scoring in Italy is a lot better than scoring in Russia!
I just don’t believe in promoting any player when it’s on their reputation and not in their current form! Back before 2012 I was really not a fan of Perisic but he made changes to his mental part of the game and he became more consistent and I acknowledged and always supported him.
I agree with you on that point about form Slavonac. Form and stats should carry the argument forward.
I have to agree with you on your assessment there. Hajduk, as a Dalmatinac, did not have it in them and they haven’t been playing well in general in my view.
Dinamo on the other hand played a fantastic game against a high level club. I’m sure that everyone in England will say that Dinamo won because Chelsea played poorly or wasn’t being managed well, but I don’t think that is the case.
The pairing of Petkovic and Orsic proved to be good enough to make a difference with that goal scored which I will say was more than sublime from both the pass made by Petkovic and the goal that Orsic managed to score. It showed class and intent. This along with the defensive ability of Sutalo and the great game that Ljubicic played as well. If these players, among the others, continue to play as they did then they can make at the very least a deep run in this tournament.
Croatian players are also undervalued especially when compared to their English counterparts.
Are Petković and Ademi really worth only 6 million Euro each?
Josip Šutalo is seen as a huge prospect by both Croatian and English media…yet he’s rated as an 8 million Euro player? Really?
If Šutalo was English or French he would immediately be rated as worth 30-40 million minimum.
Up until recently, Joško Gvardiol was still rated as a 20 million Euro player on Transfermarkt…and even now he’s listed as a 35 million Euro player (despite the 90 million offer that was made by Chelsea).
Dinamo players (overall) are probably double their listed value…with key players probably even more.
Also, the other factor is that we’re always going to have elite technical skill.
You can have all the 90 million Euro Fofana-caliber defenders in the world…but none of them are immune to a Bruno-caliber nutmeg.
Nutmegging players is not fundamental football…but we do it anyway, and it can shatter confidence and flip a game on its head.
We have out of shape smokers on the field with poor fundamentals and low market value…but when they start nutmegging opposing players, suddenly the game changes.
Our creative technical ability is what puts us ahead of most countries and the added value it brings has always been underrated.
I’d rather have elite midfield creativity over any other position in football.
Misic was stuck in between several Chelsea players and was heading towards the outside of the field when he quickly changed directions and megged the Chelsea player…it was priceless!
I remember against Spurs, when Spurs were down a goal on aggregate and needed to score…Dinamo cleared the ball and it came to Bruno at center field.
The defender (Davinson Sanchez) ran right at him to pressure him (because Spurs didn’t have time to mess around) but then he got scared, stopped, and started shuffling backward.
Why? Because Bruno was nutmegging players all game and this defender didn’t want to look like a fool and didn’t have the confidence to pressure Bruno up close.
6 million Euro, lazy, slow forward…striking fear into a 30 million euro centerback.
This is something that even our lowest value players will always have.
yeah, if Bruno could only see that his career is slowly winding down and he’s currently in his prime years…maybe he will take the next 5 years more seriously!
Agreed. I openly mocked Petković whenever his name was brought…until now. If he can keep up this work rate, he definitely deserves a spot on the repka. I never questioned his skill…just his apparent laziness.
Well Croatians are late bloomers.
Hopefully Bruno is one.
Would be a great option for us if he ever reached his potential.
Hmm I’m a wee bit concerned about Gvardiol’s playing time in the run-up to World Cup.
Now after a run of disappointing results, Leipzig has sacked Tedesco and replaced him with Rose… I have no idea if this is good or bad for Gvardiol. At BVB, I remember Rose usually favours a back 4 defense. If Rose goes with a back 4, Orban will definitely take one of the CB spots, leaving only one CB spot to be contested among Gvardiol, Simakan and Diallo. Unless Rose wants to use Gvardiol at LB, which is something we’re not keen to see.
If Rose deploys a back 3, it looks like a battle between Gvardiol and Diallo for the left-sided CB spot with Orban in the center and Simakan as the right-sided CB. Who is Diallo… will he pose a threat to Gvardiol’s playing time?
Leipzig is banking on getting 100 million Euro next summer after the World Cup.
I don’t think there’s any way that he will lose playing time to anyone.
If Rose has an issue, I’m sure management will promise him reinforcements in the future from the Gvardiol proceeds that favors his formation and style so long as they continue to showcase Gvardiol as the greatest thing since sliced lepinja.
Interesting table.
Shows how out-of-control EPL spending is, even in a recession.
Was surprised to see Dinamo with $7 million spent. They usually spend almost nothing.
According to Transfermarkt, it’s mostly on Bosko Sutalo (4.4M) and the rest is on Ljubicic (2.75M). Drmic was a free transfer.
I think they made a mistake bringing in Bosko for that kind of money. Could have used that money better.
Nah. Dinamo being Dinamo will turn him around and sell for a profit. They have a knack for this.
Yea, they probably will (since he’s still young).
But I mean for the short term, it would’ve been better had they spent the 4.4 million on someone that could help them right now.
Just one win in Champions League gives you 2.8 million.
Finishing in third place and moving onto Europa knockouts gets you a few million also.
Glad they spend on players that they can flip for cash in the future (since they’re savvy like that) but it’s a shame they couldn’t get some benefit from him right now.