Biggest move: Franjo Ivanović gets his first senior call-up after a fantastic season for USG in Belgium (10 goals, 5 assists in 22 matches). Will he see the pitch? There’s a very good possibility. Budimir is the only other true #9 that Dalić has called up to the squad. With Matanović out, this opens up the door for Ivanović who has been nothing short of stellar in Belgium.
Biggest disappointment: No Luka Vušković. Bring the kid up to the senior squad to train and travel with the team, even if Dalić has no intention of playing him. Bringing up Moro is a complete waste of a spot. He won’t contribute in March. He’s already 26 years old. Calling up Moro is a head scratcher.
Other than that, it’s the usual suspects. My eyes will be on Perišić the entire month of March. He was electric vs. Juventus in Champions League and if he can bring his normal wing play to the Croatian national side in 2025, Budimir may actually get some service in the air for once.
Pong also bench today
He’s behind Comuzzo who just turned 21 – who has only been a bench piece for Italy U19/U20
Yet Dalic thinks he’s good to start for the Croatia NT lol
So sad
Unreal
He’s actually a better player than Comuzzo though. Pongračić started against Lecce and only after he came out did Lecce start to get any decent chances on goal. The guy was injured for a long time and only recently came back and earned a starting spot in most of the matches since then. If you were actually Croatian, you would be supporting Croatian players, not making up stories about how some random players are supposed to be better than the Croatians. It was like that with all those posts you made about Gvardiol somehow being inferior to a bunch of Tottenham players and Dalić being inferior to Postecoglou, etc. Are you a Croatian fan or not? Most of us are sick of your negativity about Croatian players. We come here to celebrate Croatian sports, not dump on it
It’s okay to criticize Croatian players.
Nobody wants this place to be an echo chamber where everyone is just blindly pumping up players (even if they’re not playing well).
Pongračić not playing well, or not being able to nail down a starting spot (and yet still getting guaranteed callups) deserves a bit of criticism toward Dalić, especially with a player like Vušković available.
That being said…
People have to be careful with their criticism if they’re not actually watching these players play on a regular basis.
I doubt most of us have even watched any Lecce games this season, so a lot of us are simply going by the match reports alone.
Truth hurts bro
PS if Jagusic puts on a performance this weekend vs Dinamo – sure he’ll be motivated as they dropped him and he’s high in confidence – the asking price shouldn’t definitely be 10m (Crnac comp) – hard to go higher as hasn’t been capped for Croatia senior like Petar Sucic
Luka Sucic start
Livakovic bench
DCC bench (Lyon prefers to play a 32 yo RB Clinton Mata as CB who just got capped for 85th Angola last year – of course Dalic doesn’t see this as relevant and thinks DCC is good enough to start as CB in a back 3 for Croatia lol – when you have guys like Sevelj who have raked up almost 3000 min for Aberdeen and won 2 months in a row POTM)
Jagusic – yes Cro911 – those 2 Jagusic goals y’day were great – the first one is the best close control turn dribble shoot we’ve seen EVER from a Croatian player (better than anything Yamal has ever done) – watched several times in slow motion – what feet he has you can’t teach/learnt this he was born w this ability – and a week ago nobody even mentioned the him – Slaven should get at least 5m Brugge wanted to pay for Durdov – maybe more – 10m seems fair – hopefully Slaven learnt there lesson w Ante Crnac – selling him to cheap to only be sold on a year later to Norwich for >10m)
Luka Sunjic
https://youtu.be/J2oeiAee3d4?si=RKxKLpmcxNgZ8BhQ
agent or family member? 😉
The next Halilović?
Let’s start all the hnl players and bomb this game to get in a better World Cup group
I am the agent. My name is Mohamad Khaled Hussein
Sell him to the saudis for big bucks Croatian talent
Vuskovic is a must!
I think for some reason he is afraid to call on Vusković, maybe he sees it as too much of risk. As much as I still want him to call the guy up. I think we need depth defensively, we had way too many issue defensively in this Nations League. Plus Gvardiol could use solid support beside him freeing him to play more offensively which he likes too. It would potentially make our back four more solid with really good substitutes.
He seems hesitant to call up youth, even though he has all the more reason too at this stage.
I still wanted to see Ljubičić called up as well, the guy deserves a chance atleast.
Maybe he will be more willing to do this in the qualifiers for the World Cup, given that we are down to the final 8 in the Nations League
Slaven’s 19 y.o. Adriano Jagusic called up to U21 – first call up to a Croatia team
Was released by Dinamo in 2021 – been at Slaven ever since
He scored that goal of season contender vs. Osijek at the weekend
Fantastic post by his agent MSportsPro on the Gram
Croatia U15 x
Croatia U16 x
Croatia U17 x
Croatia U18 x
Croatia U19 x
Croatia U20 x
Croatia U21 ✓
Hard Work Pays Off @ajagusic
Scored 2 great goals today in the cup quarterfinals against Gorica. Interesting that Alen Grgic said Jagusic has the talent to play for Barcelona.
And there’s no Dinamo players on the U21 team— that’s gotta be a first and a bad sign for the near future
Nah.
A lot of Dinamo youth players are either already on the senior squad (Baturina, Sucic)…are injured (Stojkovic)…are on loan (Vrbancic, Caic)…or were recently sold (Soldo)…or they just let some other team develop (Jagusic).
I guess Moro is called because he played very well during his minutes against Portugal in that last fixture and has generally been a starter at Bologna this season and plays well there. Vlašić likewise has been playing well this year. But at this point, Croatia has so many players who are playing well enough to get an international callup, that the criteria has to be a bit different. Maybe Dalić just doesn’t want to break the team up, especially since some (and I say some, not all) of the recent performances were inspiring about the direction the team is headed. But it seems that these matches against France are the perfect time to bring in Vušković, given that losing gives Croatia a lighter qualification group for the world cup. However, other than the omission of Vušković, this is the best team he could have called up right now. All these players except DCC and the recently injured Livaković are playing really well, but DCC has played very well since being reintegrated to the repka, so it would be stupid to drop him. The team doesn’t need more than two number 9s for two matches, and there is plenty of wing play on this team with Gvardiol, Sosa, Stanišić, Juranović and Perišić. Even Ivanović sometimes plays on a wing. Hard to complain about these selections given the quality of the players on the roster. More important is what Dalić does with them and that the players step up.
I agree.
We have a lot of ‘middling’ players who are starters in good leagues (like Pasalic, Vlasic, Moro, etc.) but these guys don’t move the needle for us. It’s also pretty pointless for us to continually call up additional midfielders (when it’s pretty obvious that is our strength and we have a rotation of 4-6 mids that will always be playing the full game anyway).
It wouldn’t be the end of the World if we called up one or two less of these middling players, and tried out a guy like Luka Vuskovic or Bruno Durdov (to see what impact they could make for us).
Dalic actually did this with Petar Sucic (who was pretty young and unproved with his first callup) and the guy is pretty much a guaranteed starter for us already.
He tried it also with Matanovic as well (with mixed results) but it was the right move to try it out (even though he kept pushing it).
Guys like Ivanovic and Vuskovic are well overdue to be called up and given minutes. I would even try out a couple of others (like a Durdov talent).
We don’t need to see any more of Nikola Vlasic.
Yeah, even his call-up of Dion Drena Beljo was a good move that produced some interesting chances at the time. I think Vlasić is an excellent player, but I also think he should be dropped because we already have Kramarić and Mario Pašalić. Vlasić does not beat Kramarić in skill, and he doesn’t beat Pašalić in physicality. Moro makes more sense to me because he is different than Jakić and Petar Sučić, but still… Three defensive midfielders? Jakić and Sučić are both more interesting players.
I guess Toni Fruk is also a new callup that I failed to comment on when I originally posted, but Fruk makes the midfield question even more strange because he plays the same position as Kramarić, Pašalić and Vlašić, right? So unless the point is to bring Fruk up to prove that Vlašić no longer belongs, what’s the point? It would be easier just to tell him. I don’t see Krama or Pašalić being cut because they are both playing very well consistently. As long as they play in their actual position, they are great. The question is how to get the best out of a stacked roster. Which formation? Do you use wingers or wing-backs? One or two strikers?
Let’s face it…Toni Fruk is a “DEI hire”. 🙂
Dalic is all about creating diversity in his callups, and tries to include various players who come (not only) from Dinamo, but from Hajduk or Rijeka as well (especially if the games are being played in those cities).
Look how unnecessarily hard he tried to get Livaja back into the team?
Why? We have Budimir and Franjo Ivanovic now. It makes no sense to go backward.
But the game is in Split, so of course, Dalic wants to get a current Hajduk player in there.
As for Rijeka…they’re currently the top HNL team and don’t even have a player on the list, so it makes sense for Dalic to fill the quota with Toni Fruk (even though we have 10 midfielders now, and very very few CBs called up).
Good for Fruk, but he’s not necessary at all and we desperately need some depth at CB (and possibly even on the wing). Calling up Vuskovic make a whole lotta sense, and adding Fruk into the lineup was pointless.
I agree that Dalic should call up Vuskovic or Durdov instead of the replacement level midfielders, but I stop short of giving Dalic much credit for Petar Sucic.
If Brozovic didn’t retire from the NT, he would most likely still be starting without Sucic even getting a callup. Durdov most likely won’t get a call-up until Perisic retires. And I’m sure Hajduk will figure out a way to stall his career before that happens.
The old guard has more job security than a Supreme Court Justice.
100%
Broz forced his hand.
Same goes for Livaja. It’s unlikely that Ivanovic would even get a minute on the field if Livaja decided to come back to the squad. If Ivanovic get some bench minutes against France this month, it will be thanks to Livaja not accepting Dalic’s desperate attempts to bring him back.
We actually need several CBs to get injured now, just for Vuskovic to get his first cap. Most are out of form, but are STILL being prioritized in the callup list ahead of Vuskovic.
Of the the three true CBs called up (haha!) DCC is the only one who is truly out of form, from what I understand. DCC lost his starting spot on what is turning out to be a very strong Lyon team even though he was playing well. Šutalo seems to be a regular starter for Ajax, and Pongračić has earned a starting role at Fiorentina since recovering from injury. I guess Dalić considers Jakić, Stanišić and Gvardiol to be potential CBs if necessary. But Vušković obviously should be on the team at this point.
I seen Moro play. he is a good player . I wont say he sucks. But he has a lot to prove to show us all that he is not good, but great . He is not great. All the young kids you mentioned are playing good but not great. The team needs to introduce youth and step away from the older generation. Young legs will win and not old men. I think we should give every young prospect that’s playing well an opportunity . give them a chance to build chemistry abd develops. In the end its up top them to preform and prove to everyone that they belong
Sorry, here’s the link
***.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx3L5nBhoC0
Leading Fan Podcast reviewing the latest on Vuskovic and who he positions going into summer/pre-season
Jakic and Moro were called up in the fall bc JJ and Stanisic were injured
Recall Dalic saying Jakic, Moro or Marco Pjaca could all play RB
But now w/ JJ and Stanisic back – why are Jakic and Moro still being called up ?
Jakic actually earned his place w/ that outstanding 45 min MOTM vs. Portugal (especially after the knee injury in the Scotland game)
But Moro and his now 2 caps – why ?
Vlasic – why ? Give Mudrazija a chance – the guys carrying Loko on his back
Funny MLS Marco on standby (along w/ Marko – although Dalic will never play wingers) but MLS Musa not (where we actually don’t have enough strikers w/ Petko, Matanovic, Livaja all out)
Crnac – he’s “too old” apparently for the U21 squad (born Dec 2003 – oldest announced is Jan 2004 – while Thailand FA has said they taking players born after Jan 1, 2003 – I’m sure the nose-pickers didn’t f up the team selection by missing a year, lol – even more confusing is the tournament is U23 Doha Cup 2025 – which means you should be able to take players born in 2002) – but how come no Crnac – he is 1st in goals in the Championship for players U21 (and that’s despite playing way too much on the RW instead of centrally as the #9) – so at the moment Crnac is nowhere – not on U21 and not on the ST – poor guy
Vuskovic – who cares about U23 Doha Cup 2025 – it’s meaningless – makes zero sense – the last time we played U23 – was in 2022 – look who played – not one of these players have received even one cap on the Senior team – the most notable players are Galesic, Sego, and Belcar – Vuskovic is wasting time next to players – most of which won’t progress to next level – while he could be absorbing everything Modric has to offer for a week (including how to best position himself at upcoming Tottenham pre-season camp – which Modric knows a thing or two about)
Don’t understand why Dalic is now married to Erlic (he’s only played 350′ this season – drop him !), DCC (nobody wanted to buy him in Jan – despite his team needing to sell anyone and everyone – or they get relegated to 4th tier next year) and Pong (just back from injury) – there are Croatia CBs playing crazy minutes in decent leagues/teams that the nose-pickers could consider – Vicko Sevelj at Dundee United – who are 2 points out of 3rd place in Scotland (to get into Europa) – he’s played 2,700 minutes – mostly as #6 and even #8 – but can also play both LCB and RCB and RB – a perfect utility player – that could be a nice piece to the roster to fill in for our void at CB currently and back-up/rotation at #6 – and he’s only 24 years old – and scored a nice/smart header off a corner last weekend
The CB brain fart with Dalic is a real issue.
The guy just can’t seem to call up more than one or two in-form CBs.
It hurt us badly in the previous rounds, and now he’s done it again.
Sutalo is our only defender who is regularly playing at CB for his club.
We actually have some decent in-form CBs playing on multiple clubs (along with a future star in Vuskovic) but we’re still sticking to the same group of defenders for some reason.
Ajax fans have praised Sutalo this year from the comments I’ve read. Some saying they would not sell him for under 40 million euros