Rebić, Kramarić, and Brekalo have all been on fire this week. And now you can add striker Ante Budimir to that list with two goals Tuesday night in a 3-2 Osasuna win over Cadiz. His first goal was a cool header to the bottom-left corner of the net. Then second was a left-footed curler from 18 yards out.
There is zero chance Budimir starts as Croatia’s striker at next month’s Euro, but he could be a valuable asset of the bench in the last 20 minutes if he keeps this form and confidence up.
I agree with @Stari, you gotta give Budimir a proper go if you want to go Rebic on the wing rather than Brekalo, Budimir only got 90mins in the UNL, and if I recall correctly you guys sucked bad, especially against the world cup champions, my France.
It wasn’t only Budimir that “did nothing” in the UNL lol!
It’s not right to single out Budimir for his performances in the UNL when others played a lot more than him, and again, as a collective, you guys did suck.
I’d give him a go in a friendly with some of these other players that like him are in pretty good form right now to really see what he can offer, rather than just write him off.
But after today, it would be hard not to go Rebic up top.
I think it was @BZ that talked about Rebic possibly playing up top for your national team a while ago, I know he talked Perisic as LWB ages ago, and then Conte tried it with some success.
Where is @BZ?
Prime Rebić !!
At 27 he has ALL the explosive speed and now all the confidence, skills and tactical awareness.
He is peerless on our squad.
Leading Milan to a top 4 finish and CL.
Haven’t seen that force of nature since Alen Bokšić!!
Just checked the stat line for the AC Milan game…Rebic with 3 goals and an assist while playing up top in a 4-2-3-1.
Maybe something for us to consider given that we can’t find a Mandza replacement. Have Perisic on one wing and possibly Brekalo on the other?
Maybe gives Krama a chance to play his natural position behind a striker. It leaves us without a tall target man but a thought.
This Biuk kid looks great from the highlights. Quick feet and great ball skills…the future is looking bright.
I agree with you on that lineup, Dalic should 100% try that out against Belgium
Good to see these blokes scoring but is anyone worried about Vrsajlko getting zero competitive minutes?
A bit, however whenever he plays he gets injured. So I’m honestly fine with it as long as he’s healthy for Cro. Even an out of form Vrsaljko is 100x better than anyone else at that position.
History of Croatia in events go with goalkeeper- Livi ? Grbic? we’ll go where the goaltending takes out- 1998, 2018- especially this Euro- I see calamity in the back and we better get some saves like we haven’t seen before- I hope i’m wrong but the goaltender will either be the beginning of a great Euro or a very fast end.
Rebic on FIRE today….hopefully he’s the spark that we were missing in March
Stipe Biuk really is one to keep your eyes on… what a performance
Rebic with 3 late
Depending on the game and opposition I have no issue with budimir playing more than 20 minutes or even starting although do we have first 11 pretty much settled
Well at least Dalic does
Now that the dust has settled a bit
Sosa has completely been played and has screwed up
He now potentially has no international career to rely upon and in part being played by the Germans manipulating tactics
Sosa would have been a great sub for us at the euros with his movement and crosses
Just a shame that it came to this
So unnecessary
If anyone remembers when I mentioned Stipe Biuk, the younger winger from Hajduk, the other day, he currently has a goal and an assist against a decent Gorica side both from great dribbles. This kid is playing so well since getting promoted to the first team recently. One to watch.
Dalic! Cap him fast!!!!!!!!
Show me a better header from a Croat this season tho. That was smooth
If Rakitić does that in 2012 we are champs;) definitely our biggest pains have Been overall in euro cup
Let’s hope this year we have a break through for euro
Ivan Šaranić on the bench for Dinamo today, expect him to get some minutes…
If Budimir is a starter for us, we are in trouble. He’s been in good form and he can be an asset off the bench, but we need Petko up top. Vlasic, if in form, is a better pair up option with Petko in my opinion than Kramaric is. Although Petko can pass excellently and help set up Kramaric, we’ve seen him very selfish and unmotivated when playing for Croatia. If Petko-Vlasic doesn’t work, then try it with Krama. These are things we need to do against Belgium and Armenia, starting Budimir would be useless because we know what he brings.
I want to see the following lineup against Belgium:
Perisic-Petkovic-Rebic
Vlasic
Modric-Brozovic
Bradaric-DCC-Pongracic-Vrsaljko
Livakovic
I know Bradaric will 95% be with the U21s, so put in Barisic there for him if that’s the case. Sub in Brekalo for either Perisic or Rebic, whichever is performing less well. I think he deserves some game time and a start against Armenia for his form. Sub in Krama for Vlasic at the 50th or 60th if Petko-Vlasic isn’t working. Some more sub options can be Kova for Modric, Budimir for Petkovic, Orsic for Perisic, Lovren for Pongracic… we’ll see how Dalic plays his cards.
Referring to Krama when I said selfish and unmotivated, Petkovic isn’t selfish enough to try and pot one sometimes. He can look unmotivated though.
Man City’s Aymeric Laporte is trying to switch to Spain now, and the French press and former French players are letting him have it, lol.
We’d better cap Luka Sucic fast, before this wave of “nationality switch shaming” takes hold, lol.
I think his switch is a lot more justified. The dude is a rock at Man City and he’s 26!! France are capping Upamecano before Laporte! Plus, France doesn’t have as strong a national pride as we do, I don’t blame the guy haha.
Laporte is ineligible for Spain, for the exact same reason that Sosa is ineligible for Germany.
He played for France’s U21 team at age 22 (in 2016). Remember, if you’re capped by another team (at any level) after the age of 21, you’re locked in regardless of citizenship status.
But even if you ignore this newer rule, Laporte doesn’t even have Spanish citizenship yet, so he would have been ineligible anyway, since he was capped by France’s junior teams long ago (and would be ineligible the same way Sertic was ineligible for us).
Are these football associations and player agents this dumb?
Can they not use Google for five minutes before having these discussions?
It’s a scary world when Davor Suker and the HNS are the most competent Footballing Association in Europe, head of Germany and Spain.
You nailed it in the intro. He’ll be a nice bench piece for us. But if we go into our group stage games and Budimir is starting for us, that’s a whole other can of worms….
So… Apparently Budimir has speaking with Izetbegović these past few months about switching to BiH.
Index is about to release a tell-all interview!
Where did you read about this?
LOL. Just messing with you man.
Btw, Izetbegović is the right wing Bosniak president of BiH.
Say it loud enough and we’ll have reporters from Index on here asking for details…. 😉
Index.hr are like ambulance chasers for anything that is anti-HNS lol
Index are anti-Cro full stop!
What’s really ironic is that Buddha and So So would form a lethal combination for us with Judas’s crossing ability and Ante’s prowess in the air.
A pity we won’t ever see it happen!
This is an opportunity to generate some good nicknames for these actions.
The Judas Cross met by the Head of Budimir the Baptist.
I have to disagree with you Ante. I think Budimir definitely should start.
From what I’ve seen of him he appears to have good positioning, great hold up play (which I think would work very well with Kramaric and Rebic to lay off to) and most importantly he’s a great header of the ball. He adds a dimension that Croatia has been missing- namely, a tall target man. We have great free kick takers and corners but no one really to aim at. I think Budimir could really help us. I’d love to see this lineup start in the belgium friendly.
Budimir
Kramaric
Rebic
Kovacic/Vlasic Modric
Brozovic
Caleta Car Pograncic Lovren Vrsaljko
Grbic
Caleta-Car leftback??
Stari…where you at on this one? You’re all over the place! Krama as a false 9. Meh. It works for Hoffenheim but won’t work for us. We’ve tried. You can’t put Modric/Kova on the field at the same time. They’re the same player. Vlasic is hurt and we don’t know if he will be ready. DCC is not a left back. Grbic hasn’t played all season.
And Budimir did NOTHING in Nations League when given a chance.
From what I’ve seen of Budimir I think he is a great target man up front. Very good with headers and very good holding up the ball and laying it off to guys coming up underneath him (those guys being Kramaric, Rebic and Perisic).
An aerial threat is something we’ve been sorely lacking in and I think it could pay big dividends on set plays and corners. We have great delivery but no targets. Yes, he didn’t do much in the nations league but he has been hot lately and given the chance to build up some chemistry within the team it could really cause problems for opponents.
I agree with you that instead if Kova/Vlasic I should have instead went with Perisic.
The reason I went with Caleta-Car at left back is that he is left footed and 6’3 (it’s good to have a few big boys on D for set pieces, long throws and corners, which we had a lot of trouble with in the last WC)
I’m sure he could adapt to that position if necessary. He is calm on the ball and distributes well.
I went with Grbic exactly because he hasn’t played all year (hunger to do something can be a great motivator) and I’d love to see what he can do. Livakovic doesn’t inspire confidence.
It would be nice to see this lineup in the friendlies just as an experiment.
—————Budimir————————
——————————Kramaric——
——————Rebic————————
——Perisic————————Modric—
———————Brozovic———————
CaletaCar——Lovren———Vrsaljko
———————Pograncic——————
————————Grbic——————