APPLE PODCAST LINK
Ante, Lebo, Zorić, and Novaković break down Croatia’s UEFA Nations League loss to Spain and what to expect next. We cover the worst part of the loss and the great things to look forward to in the next year.
How gutted are you that Croatia didn’t get their first trophy?
How will this team look next summer?
Why do we never discuss the possibility of IP4 as our 9? I don’t think we have a better finisher, including header ability, on the team… and could allow him to run less as he ages.
Can you get Ziva on the podcast? For all his idiocy back in the day and attempts to turn this site into his own debate forum, he did know his shit and was pretty spot on with a number of his opinions.
No thank you. This site is much better without him.
If Brozovic stays at Inter or decides to move to Barca, I would expect him to be an automatic starter for our NT for the next 2 major tournaments.
But if he decides to go and play in the Saudi league, meh… then I dunno what to expect. Can he still play like a top dog for us despite playing club football in Saudi Arabia?
Thoughts?
Just turned on CPL here in Canada for the first time this year. Crowd shot, one minute later…….
https://ibb.co/rxNL11Q
Looks more and more like Brozo to Al Nassr is a done deal. Who can blame the guy at this point in his career to set himself up for life.
I hope he can stay sharp enough until the Euros. Looks to me the after the Euros we see Modric, Perisic and Brozovic all hang ’em.
This team will rely totally on our back line to keep us in games.
Who is Brozovic’s agent?
The reports keep saying that Barcelona wants Broz and he’s interested in joining them, but his agent is pushing hard for him to go to Saudi Arabia instead so he gets a bigger commission.
Kante is getting $100 million to go to Al-Ittihad, yet Brozovic is going to get $20 million to go to Al-Nassr?
How is a washed up Kante making 5 times more money in the same league?
This agent isn’t doing his job.
But the weird thing about all this is tge agency is called “Epic Team”, which I can only assume is a reference to “Epic Brozo”, and it seems like they don’t have other players other than Brozovic.
Is his agency just something he started up with his family?
If so…who is this agent that is pushing him to sign a pretty weak offer from the Saudis?
I think Kante is getting 100 mill over 4 years from what I read.
Even still you are 100% right. Brozo is so underrated.
Hard to believe that at this stage in his career where he’s still playing at a such a high level he would bolt for $.
He was unbelievable that last game…
Hopefully the agent is using the Saudi deal to pressure Barca to increase their offer
Sounds like you’re right.
Still ridiculous that a complete washup is going to still make more money than Broz.
If Kante makes 25 million Euro, than Broz is worth more than double that (not less).
https://keepup.com.au/news/german-giants-bayern-munich-swoop-to-sign-aussie-teen-from-the-mariners/?mibextid=Zxz2cZ&fbclid=IwAR24erFOhTv403miUNj3wzKrwqTRhDyPkRoNyKv9SFF-1iQkoQ2dAF1_nRk_aem_ARlLGES_IOYdoY-dijC-nu3zIrnJQv8_zHlspVnpfZTG3fu32M3GsKDugk4mO72ogCg
Who is this kid? I’m pretty sure Aussie’s have a couple young cros in their youth ranks
I’m sure pletikosa is on it
If we even get one really solid prospect from Australia that can make a difference for the repka
We have to go get them
like others have said. We don’t have years of colonization but we have the diaspora who will always keep their roots and we need them
I would think the HNS has a foreign volunteers department so hope so.
Outside of Ivan Rakitic, our diaspora hasn’t really done much for us other than produce some solid role players.
The Kovac brothers were useful diaspora players for us.
Ivan Klasnic was probably the most talented after Rakitic, but we didn’t really have him starting for us for too long (just one tournament) until he had his kidney issue.
Joe Simunic is much loved, but was always an overrated role player for us. Seric, Ilicevic, Didulica, Maric brothers, and Pongracic turned out to be fringe callups that didn’t do anything for us.
Prosinecki, Pasalic and Kovacic are born outside Croatia, but were raised in Croatia so they are not diaspora players.
So in terms of usefulness and impact, it’s really been Rakitic, Robert Kovac, Niko Kovac, and Ivan Klasnic (in that order).
We’ve had too many good diaspora Croats never actually play for us. Mark Viduka, Fredi Bobic, Mark Bosnich, Christian Pulisic, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (if you count him as a diaspora Croat).
These guys would have been great to have.
We’ll see how this new generation of diaspora players like Josip Stanisic, Luka Sucic, and Gabriel Vidovic turn out. They look promising.
Such a disappointing performance by our U21 side. We concede after 20 seconds which is the quickest goal in the history of UEFA U21 EURO’s.
We had one chance during the entire match and that came in the 88 minute when Frigan should have scored.
Spain 9 – Croatia 1, played Spain 10 times at the U21 level and that was our 9th defeat. Apart from Kotarski and Baturina the rest of the players below par. Beljo the biggest disappointment and was rightly subbed at half time.
The team looked impressive for most of the qualifying matches, however missing half a dozen players due to injury, suspension and unavailability took its toll.
Well, they lost Gvardiol, Šutalo and Stanišić to the senior team which took its toll.
They were playing Franjić out of position at CB, along with a couple others who probably never would have sniffed the starting eleven had Gvardiol and Šutalo not developed so quickly.
Baturina was alone in midfield. Weak CBs behind him (unable to make a clean pass) and no Sučić to help him out in midfield.
U21 tournament results mean nothing, simply because of this.
If your players are too talented, then they’ll just make the jump to the senior squad early.
Much better second half, just no finish.
Baturina will be very good.
Frigan has real potential. He’s got a nose for the net.
Kacavenda definitely has something intangible, that X-factor. Hopefully his health holds up.
Most of you will call me crazy, but I’d start Kotarski with the big boys. I really like his confidence. He made some really good saves too. I haven’t seen a Croatian keeper command his box like that since, well, never….
Yea I caught the last 30 minutes.
Best players for us were Baturina and Kotarski.
Martin Baturina was probably the biggest natural talent on the field for both teams. He’s looking like the real deal.
Kotarski looks like a serious goalkeeper prospect. Spain could’ve had a couple of goals there in the last 30 minutes, and he effortlessly bats away a few great shots on goal. Positioning and reaction were great. He should probably already be backup keeper on the senior team.
I think our problem today (based off what little I saw) was that we needed Luka Sucic and a healthy Kacavenda in the middle to help support Martin Baturina. The guy can’t do it alone, and it didn’t look like these guys like Prsir, Stojkovic, etc have what it takes.
Also, the CBs that were playing today (Franjic and Perkovic) are bad passers. They kept messing up. Thankfully we have younger and better CB prospects already on the senior National Team.
Kacavenda actually swung in some solid crosses. Even though his knees may be shot, the talent is there to still be a depth player for us. Baturina had some nice corner kicks and free kick attempt too. Just an overall technically talented player that is good at everything. They could teach the senior team how to swing in crosses and take corners properly.
If you can get a few prospects from your U21s, it’s a win. If Baturina and Kotarski pan out, those are two very important positions that we have a couple of blue chip prospects for.
Yeah I get the same feeling with Kacavenda. Can only imagine what he was like pre-injury. Dunno what his best position is but seems like he can easily play on the wing.
88th min frigan just missed a tap in
The U21’s look terrible. Got scored on in 20 seconds, new U21 Euro’s record. Bartola Franjic is captaining the team playing out of position in defence due to injuries. He’s played 12 minutes of soccer since September. He looks awful. Those young Hajduk defenders would have come in handy right about now…….
Beljo, while not receiving much service, does not look good. He looks a lot like Petkovic. That’s not a compliment. Hopefully he and the rest of the team turn it around in the 2nd half.
On a positive note, Kotarski looks really good. Plays a lot like Manuel Neuer, sweeper keeper. He has a lot of confidence.
Is it the tactics maybe?
Do they try and dominate possession like our senior team does? Do they play wide via the flanks?
Maybe Dragan Skocic isn’t a good coach after all.
I haven’t watched any of these Euro2021 games, but I might tune in to see what’s up.
I still think Sosa has a lot to offer. Love how he brings up the ball to the offensive space. A grade up from past players at that position. Not sure why he was not able to produce the crosses at the world cup. He was the reason why we beat Russian to get us into the world cup. He had another key goal just outside the box to the run up of the tournament.
Albeit, Argentina ramming the ball down his throat while failing and falling backwards, was not a good look, I enjoy his style of play.
Soda had that camel Flu during the WorldCup. He was sick. This was reported.
I enjoyed the podcast thanks. a thought just occurred to me, Holland almost beat Argentina in the last World Cup. Many said Argentina should have gotten a red card in that game. Holland would have been our next opponent. It puts our recent victory in perspective since we really matched up well against them.
Teams like Spain, Argentina, Croatia, Netherlands are all in the same ballpark.
Any single factor…like an injury to Gvardiol, or Pedro, or de Ligt, or a non-callup of Orsic, or a bad substitution, or single bad ref call…could decide any outcome between them. Take away the Saudi and Qatari sponsorship of Lionel Messi, and he gets a lot less bias in the World Cup, which results in zero PKs against Netherlands (or us) and Argentina is out in the quarters.
The current top-10 FIFA ranked teams are all so close to one another, that anyone could beat the other.
It’s the first time in a long time that I am seeing the top 10 teams in the FIFA ranking be an accurate one.
You could debate the order of this ranking, but these teams could all beat each other on any given day (with maybe the exception of Belgium who I would probably rank 9th or 10th in the group with Italy).
It’s nice to see us in there, and we need to remain in there, where we belong.
1 Argentina (ARG)
2 France (FRA)
3 Brazil (BRA)
4 England (ENG)
5 Belgium (BEL)
6 Croatia (CRO)
7 Netherlands (NED)
8 Italy (ITA)
9 Portugal (POR)
10 Spain (ESP)
I don’t think we are in the same ball park as Argentina if we lose 3-0 in a semi final. The Argentina side we beat was a disaster and embarrassment in 2018. They were struggling to make it to the WC that year and needed Messi to come out of retirement. I do agree Argentina had the upper hand in the World Cup with the referee.
Don’t fixate too much on the score.
Argentina needed a PK to be able to draw the Dutch, and then barely got by them in a PK shootout.
This is the same Dutch team that we just beat 4-2 (which was really 5-2 since the ref called back the last goal for merciful reasons)…and we beat the Dutch IN the Netherlands as the first team to do it in forever.
Does this mean the Dutch are not in our ballpark since we slapped them around in front of their home fans…yet at the same time we’re somehow not in the same ballpark as Argentina, who needed a biased PK call and a lot of luck to get by this exact same Dutch squad?
If we don’t win the next Euro we will be known as the poor man’s Holland.
Poor man’s Holland?
We at least qualify for tournaments consistently.
Holland is a lot more volatile. Yes, they’ve won a tournament (Euro 88) but they’ve had more attempts to do it.
Their results are all over the place and have missed tournaments at a higher rate than us, and finished last in their group a couple of times as well (something that has never happened to us).
We’re a better team than Holland since we were allowed to compete as an independent nation.
Holland has the reputation of having good teams and players. They lost what 3 WorldCups. I
Their rep is good but falter in the big one. Yes they have that Euro. One more final loss and it’s the poor man’s Holland for us.
We also produce good players (just as good, if not better than theirs), and we are less volatile.
You’re counting far back into the 70s, but if we were around as long as they were, then we probably have more success.
They’ve missed many tournaments (including a couple very recent ones) and have failed to qualify at a higher rate than us.
They are still one of the most successful nations in the World, but we are just a little bit more consistent since 1996 (when we were first allowed to participate).
If we were allowed to participate as far back as 70 years ago when they were, I think we’d have a little more success than them.
https://www.vecernji.hr/sport/vl-ekskluzivno-doznaje-josko-gvardiol-uskoro-potpisuje-za-manchester-city-1690095
Gvardiol to Man City
https://twitter.com/Ivyshrivy/status/1672397911907266561/photo/1
Get Lebo off the podcast. He’s so bad.
I disagree.
I totally disagree with you. Lebo brings common sense, balance, soccer aptitude and various other details to these discussions. Nobody is perfect but he’s pretty logical most of the time!
I’m pretty sure Lebo is TheGoldenChild
He is. But does the Goldenchild troll himself???
Only ziva can troll oneself
This was Frenchmen posing as golden child
@Dannyj
No it wasn’t, don’t even know who that guy is, is he Lebanese?
I did watch one of the world cup videos once and the old bloke in the beard is the only one I could listen to.
Anyway, kako pamtite Tita?
I listened to the podcast. I think we’re at a crossroad with HNS. Old guys are soon heading out and young guys not getting the shot they may deserve. I think we’ll have to dive in and see what the young guys can bring. I hope to see some of the kids who are being touted get their show during Euros and against Turkey who is probably our only real competition and they shouldn’t be at all. If Dalic won’t do it, maybe time to bring in a teacher role in as the “trainer” as we like to say in Croatian. Hard to do with his winning record as titles. Nothing against Dalic , he has done more for us than many “trainers” combined. We have a good problem, lots of young kids knocking on the door. We also have to figure out Majer and Sosa. Really underwhelmed with them and their development.
People are allowed to have a sideways season.
Rakitic did the same thing when he first when to Sevilla. After having a great initial impact in his January transfer window from Schalke, he went sideways for a couple of years, then blew up in his third year.
Vrsaljko was seen as a top prospect from Dinamo, went sideways, then went to Genoa and suddenly started looking good again in Serie that eventually earned him a starting gig at Atletico.
Our players seem to do this all the time, and I expect a bounceback year from Majer and Sosa.
To expect a “bounceback” year from Sosa suggests he had a poor year. He did not. Dalic just refuses to give him a meaningful chance.
Overall, this was an “ok episode” although I didn’t feel there was enough specific content.
Ante, you were saying you felt the game between us and Spain was like a “chess match” and I think thats a fair assessment. You then mentioned you wished we were more offensive during the game and this is where things become a challenge. To create more would suggest we make a “team effort” to push more players into the attack…and playing a great team like Spain, I think this would benefit them more than it would benefit us. Spain demonstrated they are incredibly organized and disciplined, its very difficult to “break their lines” without the risk of us getting outnumbered on a counter-attack. I was satisfied with Dalic’s plan, we could have scored but didn’t execute, the game was close and we were relevant the entire 120 minutes…except for the second half of extra time.
Also, I’m not sure if it was Novakovic or Zoric but one of them kept mentioning Brekalo…and that “they like him”…he’s been doing ok at Fiorentina?? I’m curious…have they watched him? Do they say this from past or recent history because Brekalo hasn’t scored a goal in a full season, I think he might have two assists and as much as I appreciated him for being a shifty and creative player at times, his overall contributions and form have significantly fallen in the past two seasons. He’s often an unused sub. What exactly is there to “like” about Brekalo’s play? He’s a liability defensively and doesn’t do enough offensively to make him worth being part of our National Team…and I say this as someone who really wants Brekalo at his best for us.
I can discuss other areas of the podcast but too much typing for me!
Brekalo has not been doing ok at Fiorentina. His season has been a complete and utter failure.
Brekalo is one of those players who was great playing with boys but against men it’s a different story. He gets pushed off the ball way too easily. Yes, he offers pace on the wing but I think that’s about it. I hope I’m wrong.
Orsic on the other hand offers both. I know he wasn’t in form but we should have called him up.
Oddly our most in form striker prior to these games was Budimir….