20 year-old defender Joško Gvardiol is among the top-10 nominees for the 2022 Kopa Trophy!
The Kopa Trophy is awarded to the best under-21 footballer of the year. In the past, players such as Pedri, Kylian Mbappe, and Matthijs de Ligt have won the prize.
Gvardiol is the only true defender included in the top-10 of this year’s voting. It is becoming more and more clear that he is the best young defender in world football. With the likes of Gvardiol, the Vuškovič brothers, Sosa, Stanišić, Erlić, and Šutalo coming through the ranks, Croatia is on the verge of fielding their first world class backline since ’98.
Croatia’s future World Cup winning captain right there
’98 backline wasn’t World Class.
They were strong, solid defenders and they were leaders. But they weren’t some supertalents that all the top teams were chasing.
This crew of youngsters will be much better than them. Just hoping that guys like Sutalo or Gvardiol can become leaders. Luckily, (Sosa aside) they all seem to have good heads on their shoulders.
To be fair to Sosa (what he did was idiotic ) the HNS really seemed lost at the time. Gvardiol went from no caps, to starting in the euro opener vs Im England in the span of a week…
Sosa was looking a mile skoric selections, probably thinking this is the most inept management he has ever come across, meanwhile the U21 is calling him up running some crazy formations and under utilizing their tremendous talent (most of whom should have been integrated in to the senior squad by then)
My guess is that this young generation still doesn’t fully trust to the HNS to run a professional operation
Does anyone really trust the HNS?
I’m sure luka, leaving Spain for a week is like wtf are these idiots doing 😉
I give Sosa a pass on his German experiment. Put yourself in his shoes. Starting in the Bundesliga, no apparent interest from Croatia, being courted by the greatest team in European football history. I see this more as HNS recruitment incompetence, which they have turned around with Stantisic, Vidovic, etc. Besides, he hit the cross which avoided us a messy qualification playoff. As long as he produces and has the respect of his team mates, I’m happy he is our left back.
Agreed. People need to start looking past this with Sosa. It is his career and his hard work not ours to argue and disparage. He made what decision he thought was right and get over it. I am sick and tired of hearing about it.
For the longest the HNS wasn’t even looking at diasporic talents, save maybe a few. It is now that they finally starting really pushing this notion,so I don’t blame Sosa I blame the HNS for not doing a better job of seeking out these talents.
Luckily Sosa aside??.. I dunno what you mean by that. I think Sosa is a great defender and wingback.