Roko Šimić is only 18 years old. He’s the son of Croatian legend, Dario Šimić (100 caps). And we’ve been talking quite a bit about him this season on all CroatianSports outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Insta).
He’s not playing in a top-5 league quite yet, but these numbers are impressive for any 18 year-old at any club in Europe.
Šimić has scored seven goals and posted four assists in his last six matches.
He has totaled 24 goals and six assists in 30 games for Liefering/Salzburg U19 this season. (Liefering is Red Bull Salzburg’s feeder club)
Šimić has also scored six goals in eight games for Croatia U21 during the last campaign in 2021/22.
Still young, yes. But if he can keep this momentum and eventually make it to the Red Bull Salzburg A-squad, who are currently a Champions League group stage team, the sky is the limit for Šimić. He’s also at a premium feeder club for the rest of Europe at RB Salzburg which will only set him up for success when the time comes.
But the real question is: when can the Croatian senior side start talking about using Šimić with their current lack of striker depth? Obviously, 2022 is still early with big Nations League matches in June and the World Cup in November, but if Šimić stays the course, is 2023 his year alongside Petar Musa?
First goal was a pressure penalty, second was a cracker of a shot. Commentators saying a stand-out performance from Perisic who has definitely been Inter’s player of the season.
Perisic just proves why he should not be a wingback for croatia the guy is our ronaldo. Him on left and with sosa as lb will do terror to any defense.
correct! even someone as tactically incompetent as dalic cant get this wrong
Yes, he can play any position, but I don’t follow your argument. He is a “wingback” at Inter. All of his masterclass performances for Inter have been as a “wingback”.
Make it 2 goals in a couple of minutes for Perisic!!
PERISIC with the potential italian cup winner to make it 3-2 v Juve
Nasty tackle on Kova
Musa is a “now” player, not one for next year
ANA MARIA MARKOVIC…hot damn we need an article on her she’s the hottest woman’s footballer out there even ranked #1 hotty in a lot of polls
La KNAT you will bust a nut guaranteed!
Anyone watch Rijeka games?
Caught the last one and Nediljko Labrović looks decent in goal.
Good size, pretty confident, and still only 22.
I think tho we can all mostly agree
Budimir is our most inform striker currently
Musa has to be second
But of course krama is playing a bit of a diff role this year
I guess it’s how we lineup
It appears budimir and krama can work together
But if we can only go with one who gets it?
Krama is probably not the guy
Budimir or musa course budimir is far ahead the seniority
But most likely dalic will do some sort of petko livaja up front combo;)
Maybe im saying nonsense but we really need to start giving young guys chances again if you dont have a striker why not. Dalic just does it so poor to me. Gvardiol gives him a debut at euros litterally. Sosa almost choose germany. Majer just recently started getting call ups and playing time for croatia even if he has been doing well since 2019. Didnt go to euros btw. Cbs imo also vida lovren dont have anything left imo but dalic will keep them the only over 30 players worth keeping are modric perisic kramaric budimir
I bet Dalic calls petkovic before he does musa or simic because he believes in petkovics talent hahahahha.
Dalic probably has no idea who he is.
Lol dirk diglic
Great name
Shupak takur or someone had was also a great one I remember
Don’t Jerko my Leko was good to.
Remember Leko?
On the strikers. I think simic still has a long way to go before being ready. Hes talented but there are 4 strikers ahead of him at salzburg in the Austrian league. With his height and playing style he will need a couple of years to develop physically before he is ready for consideration.
Matanovic looks like a better prospect at this stage. The goal the other day was impressive. Long term matanovic and vidovic are the ones to look out for I think. Simic is doing great but I’m yet to see him do something which really makes me excited.
Musa looks like a really good all round striker. Similar to budimir who is definitely under rated. He holds the ball well, moves well, finishes well and links with the players around him well. I would be up for giving them game time to have a better look.
On goalkeeper. More than any other position confidence is key. When a goalkeeper loses confidence it can be devastating. Look how long it took kalinic to recover once he had that setback against Iceland. Livakovic has lost a lot of confidence and it’s hard to recover. But only the coaching staff are in a position to really know how strong each player is feeling mentally. So we just have to hope they make the right decision and one of them recovers and hits form for the WC
Matanovic looks to be more talented than Simic, based on what he is capable of doing with the ball technically.
Simic is nothing special with the ball at his feet…But stats don’t lie, and Roko is a scoring machine. Matanovic has to play and score regularly before we can consider ever calling him up. Roko is probably less than a year away.
Roko will likely be starting for RB Salzburg next season, and if he’s scoring there too…then he will received callups. Matanovic will still be on loan at second division St Pauli next year, so it will take a bit more time.
But in terms of style of play, Matanovic has the talent to close the gap and surpass Roko…but there’s more to football than just talent. Whatever Roko is doing, it’s working for him, and he’s scoring in every league/tournament he’s playing in. He is currently the safer bet.
Uhhhh… you’ve seen enough from Matanovic to deem him better than Simic??
Matanovic has as many goals this season as I can count on one hand, not exactly promising for a striker (who’s supposed to score goals).
Not sure what you’re basing this off.
I still say we will score by committee this year if we want to succeed
With that being said musa has definitely warranted a serious look
His scoring rate has been probably the most impressive overall
Pasalic scoring abilities can’t be avoided and of course budimir with a super solid season despite being injured in probably the strongest league and on the weakest team of all three relatively speaking
Simic I’m sure in the near enough future
Vidovic, matanovic will have things to say about this as well
Future looks quite bright up front
When will the keeper position become a sexy one in Croatia? That is when we Will produce an Oblak type
Only good keepers are Slovenians and Bosnian Muslims…or both (like Handanovic).
A striker would be great, but an even bigger problem is our Goalie, personally I think that is what is hindering us the most right now. All the success Real Madrid is having, also has to do with Cortouis being in net. He pulled them back into games many times, and if anything, Real Madrid also proves how important that position is to the rest of the field. The confidence for everyone else to push further forward and play an aggressive game we just don’t have that in my opinion. Right now I am not confident in our back line, and Livakovic is the main culprit I think, and it’s not just him the question would be who replaces him if we don’t play him?? That question is a problematic one as well because I am not sure that anyone has a solution. We do have up coming talent in defense, midfield, and offence so there definitely is promise moving forward in these younger players. So I would say some good things and some troubling things for our team right now.
Totally agree- I never recall us not having a clear #1 in goal-this is a big problema.
Agreed. I can’t imagine going with Livakovic in the WC. But with Grbic not getting playing time, he’s not going to start. I feel like we tried Kalinic already, but maybe he’s turning a corner. Ivusic was great before he got injured, but that was a small sample size.
I’d be happy with an average keeper at this point, but fear the HNS standard of starting whoever is keeper at Dinamo will be what they go with. Livakovic is our worst option of the three.
On topic, I love the potential of Simic, but I’m finally feeling we’re starting to build some decent depth at striker. Musa should have been called up during March, and he better be called up this June. I think we wait on Simic and see how Musa /Budimir do in June.
There’s always the ‘Dalic delay’ we’ve got to look out for. I can see him waiting until Musa is at Benfica and starting / scoring regularly until he integrates him into the team.
I agree that Simić should wait until after the world cup, but Musa should be called up this summer. With him and Budimir and Pasalić as target men and Kramarić, Livaja, and Sučić as secondary strikers, the repka would have sufficient depth to contend for the world cup as in 2018. The depth at midfield is tremendous, and the depth at defensive positions is also sufficient. My bet is on Lovre Kalinić to earn himself a second chance at defending the goal based on his consistent performance in 2022.
Ivusic let in one goal in three games and it was a clear cut breakaway
He handles the ball relatively decent and doesn’t look like a scared puppy
I don’t know how his year has been for club
But he has of all these keepers in my opinion earned at the very least valuable game time in June
I agree, but he lets in more goals with Osijek than Kalinić does with Hajduk. Kalinić also takes goal kicks very well. Someone above mentions our need to be aggressive in attack. The way Kalinić has been taking goal kicks for Hajduk, we would be reaching the box every single time. It really should be between those two until Grbić gets regular playing time again. Livaković is the fourth keeper on the list, in my opinion. He is lucky that Dinamo has so many good players because he doesn’t get tested all that much.
I take that back. Hajduk has only one less goal against than Osijek. It’s in the second half of the season that Osijek has been conceding more goals than Hajduk