News reports have come out that Joško Gvardiol has fractured his right tibia in his game against Chelsea. He is expected to undergo surgery this week, and at worst, he could be out for four to six months.
This could be a massive blow for the Vatreni with the World Cup approaching. Gvardiol has become one of the best players in the world and the most important player in the squad, and losing him at this stage would leave a huge gap in defense.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola also addressed the injury and did little to ease concerns, saying, “It doesn’t look good.”
Zlatko Dalić commented on the injury as well, saying, “I spoke with Joško and expressed my full support, along with my hope that his surgery goes well.”
He also added, “We are currently without two players whose absence would be felt even by the biggest clubs in the world. I hope that Joško and Mateo will be with us at the World Cup.”
With the first game kicking off against England just 163 days away, the timing of the injury could not be worse for the Vatreni.
@mate1
I listed modric as above average not average. I think that’s still a fair assessment as he’s just the motor to be world class as he once was but he’s still showing his quality in Italy
Perisic as average within a top 5 league is a very fair rating. He’s currently playing in the Dutch league. It would be seriously questionable if there was a consistent starting spot for him anywhere in the top 4 leagues which i think leaves no other choice but to call him average at this stage in his career
I think it would be tough to argue any of my ratings
I would give Marko Pasalic and Luka Vuskovic plenty of rope to hang themselves, results be damned, they are fun to watch, and play with Bravado.
vuskovic can handle it, hes hungry and i say give the kid a shot, im more worried about scoring goals
Ghana-watch
Semenyo to Man City
Here we go
https://x.com/fabrizioromano/status/2008668184182964699?s=46
Sutalo…………….. Vuskovic…………… D-CC …….
Kovacic. Modric
Valincic………………. P. Sucic. ………Stanisic………
……………………..perisic ………………………………….
…………………………………..……Musa………………………..
Many saying just plug in Vuskovic are funny the guy is so far from gvardiol i don’t get it.
We lost our best player time to re think things. Vuskovic is huge liability simply plugging into back line of 4 with high line. Let him play how he plays at club last man back sweeper role.
Valincic and stanisic run the wings I had perisic but he’s to old prolly for that. Since dalic has to play him he can play behind musa. Vlasic can also play behind musa .
3-5-2 is possibly how we moving without gvardiol. You have to play to player strengths You can’t simply plug n play.
Gvardiol is an elite athlete and will come back stronger from this broken leg.
He will be playing by May and will have time to get his legs under him. He may lack rhythm but his mind and body will be fresh and ready.
Man City has the best rehab resources in the world.
He is 23.
Actually gives squad players a chance in March.
Okay, I am going to run with that belief, as the final word, to keep my sanity.
Croatia world class players
Gvardiol
Above average
Modric
Kovacic
Stanisic
Kramaric
Average
P Sucic
Perisic
Budimir
Vuskovic
Sutalo
Vlasic
Majer
Jakic
Sub level in upper leagues
Baturina
L sucic
Ivanovic
M pasalic
M pasalic
Sosa
Ivanusevec
Matanovic
Musa
Jagusic
Although this might be true, glad we still have Modric, even if he is not world class. If we had to lose either of the two, I might have picked Gvardiol over Modric, regarding total effective impact
Perišić is average? Luke Modric is average?
Which soccer games are you watching?? This is a stupid post Truth2. I’m sorry but this is the dumbest post I have read in a while.
I’m starting to think that some of these opinions are just that…opinions without any basis in reality. What makes a person an elite, above average, average player in your eyes??
If it was up to you it sounds like we would have no players called up to the squad.
Petkovic dominated Congo R16
On to QFs
Petko is a fine coach
Our next one maybe?
He’s young and a machine
Last time he was bat man this Time he will be the bionic man
They will put him on all sorts of peptides to heal hopefully and with top surgeon
Lots of steak
He will make it back
Win top defender as we hoist the cup;)
In all seriousness this is awful but let’s see
Like others have said it’s vuskovic time
Why not
Maybe he goes all world like josko did last time
He’s a baby but it’s not like we are saying oh it’s slightly possible
He’s been playing top At a top league
It’s not just wishful thinking
Bit ćemo ok
Vušković pulling a Joško 2022 is what I dream of him doing.
Rotate and pair him up with Šutalo, Prpić or some other defenders in our March friendlies to see what he can do against top talent in Brazil and Colombia.
Have been looking forward to watching Gvardiol play in his “sophomore WC” for the last your years. This was his true coming out party, had his name written all over it.
Wake me up and tell me this is a bad dream.
I hope Vuskovic get 290 minutes of play, and both of them up at Real Madrid, in 2027.
Look at Josko replay of injury
Look at his right foot going completely sideways 90 degrees
He knew right away he was fuck*d
It’s a similar injury to Eduardo
It’s a terrible injury
There is ZERO PERCENT chance he comes back for the WC
Best case he’s back for August/September – that’s if surgery and recovery go well
3-0 Como final
Semper completely got the penalty wrong – just diving aimlessly in the wrong direction – but he actually took 2 steps off his line – so even if he saved it – the penalty would have been retaken – really dumb all around
When Como got the penalty – Butter-Tart didn’t even bother to go over to teammates and impose himself and say he wants to take it – he just stood there like a beta cuck
Terrible game by Semper and terrible cameo by Butter-Tart – Cesc doesn’t trust him in midfield anymore – so played him at RW and LW – he knows he can’t play midfield and is a liability
Butter-Tart should never have been called up to the NT – what a joke
Anonymous won’t waste anymore time hoping that Butter-Tart improves – he’s a lost cause – just doesn’t care – no hunger – nothing
84:00 penalty Pisa
Look at Butter-Tart at start of penalty top of box – his man is #5 – his man flies into the box for the rebound and almost scores
Look at Butter-Tart – he doesn’t do anything – doesn’t try to block him – and doesn’t bother running and tracking/following his man into the box lol
If that ended up a goal that would have been Butter-Tarts fault 100%
He can’t even defend a penalty properly and track his man into the box
Unacceptable
Bilic would have never called-up such a beta cuck to begin with
Butter-Tart finished eating he’s coming on at 78′
2-0 Como
Semper on the 2nd goal
Bhahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaa
Great job eye testing keepers Mart
LMAO
Why did Semper dive in the opposite direction of the shot for the goal ?
A keeper is supposed to follow the ball and dive in direction of the shot
Pretty basic stuff
4th tier keeper at best
Next
Semper
The ball was shot right just to his side by Perrone
He should have saved it
But at least he tried – that’s something
Can’t believe folks were gassing him up
Butter-Tart still eating on the bench
And typical bad attitude
He yells at his teammates
For what ?
The shot was outside the box
The angle was straight at Semper
He should yell at himself
At least he has ink on both arms and both legs – that’s something
Semper
He’s reacted good reflexes to two deflected shots
See 52:33 and 59:33
Semper
If you want to see how good his distribution is
Please watch 57:20 vs. Pisa
Free kick 30 yards out of bounds from any of his teammates
At least he tried
I think there is a lot of uncertainty in time line on this injury. Some estimates have the 4-6 month time range which makes the World Cup still viable with an aggressive re hab if that’s the case
But here’s why i think the world World Cup is unlikely.
You need to ask, who is running the rehab?
The answer to that is : Man City
Gvardiol is done for them this year. They have 0 incentive to rush him back so he can play for Croatia in the summer
They will hold him back and make sure hes 100 percent ready for next season
There is more of a risk of Man City rushing him back to save their season.
I’d prefer he take the extra time to fully recover.
He’s our most durable and injury-free player (proven by the fact that he’s been playing in the physical EPL, Champions League …and still played in every tournament game for us, missing only two).
I would love to see him at the World Cup, but this type of injury takes generally 6+ months to heal.
He’s been an iron man for us, and I don’t want him to be irresponsible and risk that via re-injury.
Butter-Tart eating on the bench
Great job man managing him Dalic
At least Semper and Smolcic playing
Cavlina bench too
The reality of the situation is that even if Gvardiol prognosis is better than we expect , he won’t be the same player . Best to just count him out now for the WC . It sucks , I know.
While , I applaud his emotional and brave IG post , the reality is that he will most likely play again after the WC and who knows , maybe at another club.
This feels like when DaSilva got his leg broken playing for Arsenal .
Always England … kova, Sosa , and now Gvardiol …
They should have signed contacts on the continent …
Anyhoo,
If there is an outside chance we get out of the group , I would like to see this lineup at the back:
Valincic, Sutalo , Vuskovic, stanisic
But the above is too logical , so Dalic would never ever do this
Epl is a risky league. Look at
Orsic..the club bought him and not even put him on bench?
Eduardo: amazing tackle from englishmen just b4 england revenge on croatia in 2010 wc qualifier
Balaban: only played two games?
Kovacic: out since may 25?
Perisic: ACL during training for spurs
Kramaric: downhill in leicester
Vlasic: downhill in west ham and everton
Crnac: ACL now
All these are due to power of money attracting stars..but it comes at a price.
I hope this is not end of gvardiol, like eduardo
Sosa
To give you idea of his mentality
With the LB position at the NT wide open now
Instead of going to Mainz and starting every week ahead of the WC
Him and his 590′ at Palace say “No thanks, I just want to sit on the bench, get paid and fuck around with bitches in London for the next couple of years”
Tuesday
10am Butter-Tart Bati vs. Ghost of Mandic [Mandic is a typical Croatian player that doesn’t even make match-day squads – but spends him time posting bitches on IG]
3pm Palaversa vs. Rangers [Aberdeen fired Jimmy Thelin – in his last 15 games Palaversa didn’t make the squad 12 times (typical Croatian player at club level), was on the bench twice, and played once for whopping 4′ – the new manager can’t play him any less]
3pm Bowen ❤️
Croatia odds of winning the World Cup CRASHING after Josko news
Odds crashed 8.333% from 1.2% to 1.1% since news earlier today
Market never lies
polymarket.com/event/2026-fifa-world-cup-winner-595
Bipolar Vlad is Legally Blind and has Dementia
He says Gvardiol has never played CB for the NT next to Pong, Erlic, DCC, Sutalo
🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦
Not only doesn’t he watch the games (he likes to watch 5 seconds clips) but can’t even remember who played with who the last couple years
Can someone summarize for him (it’s not too hard – you see where Gvardiol played CB and see match info – Bipolar Vlad is too lazy to look it up)
https://www.transfermarkt.us/josko-gvardiol/nationalmannschaft/spieler/475959/verein_id/3556
After 2022 WC he hasn’t played that much CB for us. And every big games he has played LB.
But again your a troll and child
So you paint a narrative that’s it’s easy to play along side gvardiol for a CB where in fact it’s been so many years where they haven’t. Probably 80% of time post 2022 he played LB. I have a life so did I look up every games post 2022 no but I know in the big ones he played LB.
That’s what you you do lie, just like your vlasic argument should be striker scores so many goals unlike budimir who scores mostly PK. Vlasic has 5 goals 3 from PK.
League of Nations final – gvardiol didn’t play at all.
Countless important league of nations games and qualifiers he played LB.
Lase major tournament he played LB
You can keep calling names whatever makes you feel good but you lie your a troll and worse of all full of shit. With your anti dalic anti hns and everyone except former hajduk players you would be perfect to get a job at Index you will fit right in.
Considering he walked off the pitch with assistance, I’m assuming it’s a medial malleolus fracture. I highly doubt he fractured the tibial shaft aka “shin bone”….not even the toughest player could put any weight on that. Surgery is to expedite the healing and get him playing again. Most of the time it can be treated without surgery, but for someone whose livelihood depends on physical ability he probably made the logical decision to opt for surgery as soon as possible. I bet he’ll be playing again before the world cup. He might not be fit to start, but even as a sub he would be valuable to have on the squad.
thx doc
Wrong
Isak had the identical injury to Josko and walked off the pitch with assistance (identical to Josko)
Isak is out for 6-8 months
Wishful thinking is useless – deal with facts and reality
Harden up all of yous that are giving up already, hes a fantastic player Gvardiol ,but we need everyone ,to lift a bit higher to take up the slack were Croatians not a bunch of english fags First thing is to a get a result against England, do a good job against Panama then finish the black stars world cup.Also recovery can be expedited with the right treatment.
Ghana-watch
Leicester 2-1 West Brom
Both Ghanaians with goals i.e. Ayew and Fatawa (game winning in 94′)
x.com/cdrafrica/status/2008299003986014614
Without Josko – they will smoke us – maybe 3-0 or 4-0
they’ll “f us up” the same way Canada did :D.
Nah i dont mean to downplay the threat, i do think Ghana will be a challenge. But i don’t think we’ll lose 3-0 or 4-0 lol.
bs they are average Ghana thats why they are ranked in the 70s.
Right on gaz. How’s Connor
I don’t understand why people are still saying it’s an ankle injury.
It’s his right tibia. That’s his shin bone…and he fractured it. This has been reported by Man City more than 12 hours ago.
Also why is Fabrizio Romano saying it’s “weeks” to recover?
An injury like this takes months when surgery is needed. A March return is impossible.
He might be able to come back right before the World Cup, but I would prefer not to risk it if he’s not 100%.
Maybe he can come off the bench and play limited minutes instead. I’d be worried about him re-injuring himself.
Dalić has no more excuses not to integrate Vušković now.
We need to just roll the dice on our young potential ex-factors now. I would love to see Jagušić play some serious minutes too.
Nobody will fault Dalić if we fail, as you can just blame the Gvardiol injury if we’re bounced early.
If Dalić was just going to waste Gvardiol at LB, then it might not have been a major loss anyway (since he’s elite at CB). Now, this forces Dalić to do some homework. Vušković needs to start, but we need to pair him with the right partner. Curious to see who we play in our back line in March.
Yeah , since when is frigging Romano an expert in fractures and recovery times. Has he seen the trays, if so we gave a major lawsuit happenin.
Romano needs to stfu!!
Xrays *
wishful thinking maybe is why?
I must admit when i heard about this injury my first thought was too well this gives Dalic licence to actually play Vuskovic without feeling embarrassed about it since he can fall back on this excuse. So in one way there’s that, i guess. Obviously i’d prefer them both playing…
I already commented but it didn’t go through dalic needs to re think hard about playing 3-5-2.
Losing gvardiol is huge and simply cant just plug and play. I get playing vuskovic however I think playing in a back 4 esp how we play with our LB and RB high so often to make up with no wingers will be foolish. Vuskovic in my opinion wil get exposed.
Play 3-5-2 let vuskovic play his sweeper role. To me this system can have a legitimate lineup that softens the gvardiol blow.
Sutalo Vuskovic Stanisic – back line
Modric kova sucic – 3 midfielders
Valincic, perisic – fullbacks
Vlasic- plays off main striker
Musa or budimir heading line.
Realistic goal was reach round of 16 that’s still possible. They have 4 friendlies before WC that’s enough time.
Coach Dalic I am sure is devastated by this injury. But I think it gives us all a chance really to see how he handles things. There has been so much criticism of him on this site although he got us a WC silver and bronze and a Nations League silver. I am intrigued how he will handle it (although I think there is still a possibility of Gvardial recovering by late May). The WC is still almost 6 months away. A lot of things can still happen. Idemo Vatreni! Viva Zlatko!
Didn’t think it could get worse?
You’d be wrong
City signing Guehi from Palace
England #1 CB will always get priority over Josko – so even if Josko can recover before the season ends – will be almost impossible to get play time at City
Check mate
https://x.com/nicoschira/status/2008351397171871762?s=46
Who cares.
I’d prefer they don’t try to rush him back to finish the season.
I could give two $hits about Man City’s season.
I would rather he play limited minutes anyway.
Besides, he should be on his way to Real Madrid anyway. Maybe this expedites this inevitable transfer.
⬆️
Sometimes you never know. My fellow Aussies will remember Lachie Neale’s recovery for the glorious Brisbane Lions grand final victory just months ago when he had no right to play. I think he was spending hours per day in one of those hyperbaric chamber thingies and took whatever steps he could to make it. So, im just saying, who knows, maybe he will be okay to play in WC.
Well he could ask Perišić to share whatever magic he used to recover in record time from a bad ACL injury (as a 36 year old).
ETA until Modric retires (and thus Perisic and Kramaric too)???
No point Modric wasting his time without Josko
Complete waste of everyone’s time – players, Dalic, even Nose-Pickers and fans
Just forfeit out spot in the tournament and let FIFA put another country in our place and focus on Euro qualifying
It’s obviously terribly disappointing but that’s life and is what it is
Jebi se.
Ouch! That really hurts. Sorry for everyone.
Highly unlikely that Gvardiol will be fully fit for the WC? huge loss missing our best defender, but I guess defensively we have a number of players that can step up and play as CB’s although Dalic was probably going to play him or Stanisic at LB ?
Let’s hope that there are no further serious injuries and that Kovacic fully recovers and is fully fit for the WC.
He wasn’t just Croatia’s best defender he was there best player. We are still good enough to get out of the group stage since top 3 go to next round.
Realistically this team was never going to go far anyways with the majority of players already collecting their pensions (Buda, Modric, Krama, Perisic).
You sound like every pundit from the 2022 World Cup.
I have a hard time seeing gvardiol making it back in a way to help the team. He’s such a big loss that Dalic in my opinion should re think his stance of never playing 3-5-2 again. To me that is the only way to replace him in a way that the team stays strong in a realistic way. You can’t just plug a player in and carry on the same way.
Before Injury I said success would be make it out of group and win a game that is still achievable.
In march if all players available are playing and fit I would try back line of
Sutalo , Vuskovic, stanisic.
Playing Vuskovic in a back line of 4 playing with high line would make me a little scared but in his sweeper position not as much.
Midfield trio of kovacic, Modric and Sucic.
Fullbacks valincic and perisic.
Vlasic supporting striker which would be his best position
And either budimit or musa heading the line.
I would try this in march play to strengths of players available not just plug n play.
Hopefully, considering his age the 3-6 recovery will be closer to the 3 (late May?). Several weeks to get ready would be the ideal at this point considering the injury.
3 months is unlikely.
He should be allowed to begin some light work at 3 months, but not actually on the field.
It will be closer to 5 months, which takes us right to the beginning of the tournament in June (but still possibly not in form and a higher risk of re-injury as these things generally take over 6 months to fully heal 100%).