Day 16: Josip Šutalo
Season Grade: B
National Team Grade: C (met expectations but did not immediately start)
Dinamo Grade: A (best defender in the league once again)
Season Highlight:
Clean sheet against Mbappe, Benzema and France in 1-0 Nations League victory
Team next season:
Šutalo will most likely follow in Gvardiol’s footsteps as a move to Leipzig seems most likely. There is a chance he gets loaned back to Dinamo for the season (if bought by Leipzig), however he is probably good enough to play an important role for the German club as soon as next season.
Arsenal is also expressing some interest in the young defender.
What the future holds:
Šutalo has already conquered the HNL and is undisputedly the best defender in the league. He needs to challenge himself in a top 5 league next season in order to continue developing into an elite center-back. If both Šutalo and Gvardiol reach their potentials, Croatia could boast one of the strongest center-back duos in world football. Šutalo has now adopted the second center-back slot following Lovren’s retirement from the National Team and one can only hope he flourishes there just as he has for Dinamo Zagreb… and it all starts this month in a giant semi-final clash against the Dutch. Šutalo’s first step towards international stardom would be a rock-solid performance against the Oranje, just as he put up against France back in the UNL group stage.
By the looks of it Brozovic is in great form the last month or so.
I feel he’s our most important player at this point in time. If he’s on point we are in good shape heading into Nations League.
23 year old defensive midfielder Jurica Prsir, who plays for Gorica and our U21 NT, is being linked to Stuttgart.
Stuttgart is currently in a playoff against Hamburg for the right to stay in Bundesliga, and they just won 3-0 in the first leg (Sosa with 2 assists); 2nd leg will be held on Monday.
Where do you guys think orsic will end up next season?
Back to Dinamo?
He can and will turn it around
I would probably take this out of form orsic over petko and ljvaja myself
Role the dice with krama and beljo/musa
But we know dalic bless his soul is gonna dalic on this one
Seriously tho could you imagine the split boycott if say an out of form orsic took livajas spot??
It would be two swastikas next time;)
Quite a few reports saying Dinamo can’t afford to buy Orsic back… names like Osasuna and Montpellier have been thrown around… would like to see him at Montpellier as I have a hunch he will do well there. But if concrete offers are not forthcoming from the big leagues, and Bjelica wants to bring him to Trabzonspor and can guarantee him playing time, I guess that’s fine too.
Petar Musa gets a B+ for being a sub and Sutalo gets a B? Vlasic a C+…he’s non existent on our National Team and Sutalo gets a B? Vlasic was only above average in 7 of 37 games.
Let’s go back to Orsic’s pass to Bruno Petkovic’s tying goal vs Brazil…and then his goal vs Morrocco and then his Champions League goals for Dinamo this season…and his 8 goals and 7 assists as an outside attacker in the HNL this season.
you know I value your opinions Markus but these ratings don’t seem to have the same criteria across the board.
Josip Sutalo has been a stud this season and my issues isn’t his B as much as Musa, Vlasic and Orsic’s scores really don’t reflect this season for them.
To avoid confusion, they should have just kept the grades separate and not combine them.
The National Team grades and Club Team grade are two completely different things.
But still, the grades get influenced too much by “expectations”.
For example, Livaja sucks but since we expect him to suck, his National Team grade doesn’t suffer because we don’t expect anything from him.
Meanwhile, we expect Sutalo to start and because he didn’t (because of Dalic being scared of Lovren) then he gets a C.
Sutalo is infinitely better and more valuable than Livaja ever could be, so it looks weird when Livaja gets a higher grade.
I like the idea of a grading or ranking system.
I think next time, we should do some sort of ranking by “value” or “importance to the National Team” despite how well they do at club level.
Guys like Orsic would get ranked high, and bums like Livaja are put on the bubble.
you hit the nail on the head Maminjo!
“For example, Livaja sucks but since we expect him to suck, his National Team grade doesn’t suffer because we don’t expect anything from him.
Meanwhile, we expect Sutalo to start and because he didn’t (because of Dalic being scared of Lovren) then he gets a C.
Sutalo is infinitely better and more valuable than Livaja ever could be, so it looks weird when Livaja gets a higher grade.”
Mislav Orsic with an overall D still haunts me. How many BIG plays and goals did he score for club and country and he gets a D…while Vlasic gets a C+?
Livaja with an A- and
majke mi, pa sta je ovo?!?!
Livaja with an A- and was pretty much quiet except for a goal vs Canada…where we were gonna slaughter them regardless of his goal or not. He’s a Hajduk legend and a great player in the HNL but he’s not challenging himself in that league.
I am a Hajdukovac and I already made that argument about Livaja getting an A- as being quite strange to me based on his performance in both the Conference League and the National Team. For me a B- at best, given that he contributed somewhat in those two tournaments but I would argue much more was expected of him, atleast by me it was.
Orsic however, has performed well on all levels excluding his stint with the new club, albeit a very bad move apparently. But he did have an assist, a goal in the National Team (with very little playing time mind you). He did as Slavonac argues have many great goals and assists in the Champions League with Dinamo. Quite a valuable player to leave out of the squad in my view, I dunno that Dalic gets this one right. I am unsure of the grading system here maybe Maminjo is right, we should look at the impact they have had on the National Squad, and I kind of wonder if Dalic had taken this into account he wouldn’t have carried the Bronze home without Orsic…
I am not saying not to pick Livaja or give Livaja a fair valuation for his season, but they didn’t win the HNL league for a second season regardless of being back on top of the charts. That A- isn’t deserving in my view, we would have to see his goals and assists translate for the National Squad, or during more difficult tournaments like the Conference League.
If we are evaluating all achievents I think you need to take all tournaments into account as well, if that’s what your going to do. In this way I think you can safely say Orsic deserves a higher grade and Livaja a lower one.
Completely agree re Orsic.
Slavonac, we had to do it based on preseason expectations. Sutalo exceeded so he gets a B. Musa definitely exceeded especially coming off the bench.
You can’t do it based on stats. Impossible. If that were the case Musa and Krama would be A+ because they’re goal scorers and Gvardiol/Modric would be D’s. Catch my drift?
Bases on preseason expectations, that’s why we decided to give Majer and Orsic etc low grades. They did not fulfill.
Going into next season I want to wrangle everyone up and give the same 30 players preseason expectations. Games played. Goals. Assists. MOTM. Stuff like that. Then we can see if they meet or exceed expectations for next season. What do you think about that?
I get that Ante, but what about the Conference League?? I would argue that Livaja was relatively quite…
When comparing the impact Orsic had in Champions League versus Livaja in the Conference League how can we not see a clear winner there???
I would think this demonstrates how Orsic should have a higher grade, and why Livaja’s grade should be a little lower… It cannot be just based on the amount of goals scored, or MOTM honours either. Those achievents would help but is that enough to justify the grades given???
well, Musa went from playing 27 games, 2316 minutes played, 11 goals in 2021-2022 and this season he played 30 games, 640 minutes played and scored 7 goals….
that translate’s to a B+ for you? down in every category year over year and he gets a B+??
I have a feeling that Skocic is talking to Dalic and want’s Sutalo and Stanisic to come and play for the U21 at the EURO once the NL finals are over. That is why Skocic named only 4 defenders on the recently released preliminary squad list.
Both players were involved in some of the qualifying matches.
Sutalo has played most of the matches for Dinamo and the club might put pressure on him to rest after the NL finals. Stanisic on the other hand who in reality only trains at Bayern might be tempted to play for the U21.
Nothing wrong with these guys appearing in both tournaments. Playing for Croatia is what it’s all about, and if these guys can play regularly for their club teams then they can do the same for their National Teams.
The only concern is if this somehow causes Dalic to NOT use these guys in the Nations League, as he is trying to be too considerate to them and Skocic for their U21 roles.
This is a mistake.
These are young guys who very regularly play football (once or twice per week) so there is never a need to “load manage” these players.
Sutalo and Stanisic should be starting in both Nations League games. Beljo should AT LEAST be getting minutes off the bench (if not starting).
I would be disappointed of we see Dalic trying to change his formation in order to ‘rest’ Stanisic or not play Beljo at all (because he already has Livaja, Petko and Musa) just because these guys will be playing for the U21s.
I don’t like this ‘bratstvo i jedinstvo’ collectivism mentality that Dalic has sometimes with the National Team where he’s trying to satisfy everyone from players, fans and coaches.
We’re not trying to score good Croatia results across the board here.
We’re ‘ALL IN’ on the SENIOR team results.
Anything else (like U21 results) are considered a bonus.
If playing the young guys in the Nations League costs Skocic a win or two, then so be it. Even if it results in one more goal for our Nations League campaign, you do it.
The one caveat here is that a good result qualifies us for the Olympics for the first time ever. Something that should be considered. Imagine Modric winning a Gold medal…..I would trade that for a Nations League title.
Croatian players all the time level -o
this is the standard – not to divert.
World Class [Gold Type]
Luka Modric
Be Considered [Silver Type]
Boban, Suker
Decent Players [Bronze Type]
High Level –
Rakitic, Mandzukic
Mid-level >
Perisic, Brozovic, Prosinecki, Boksic,
Olic, Niko Kovac, Darijo Srna
Low level –
Robert Kovac, Dario Simic, Gvardiol,
Robert Jarni, Kovacic, Igor Tudor
______________________________________| below list]
Be Considered as Decent Players –
Bilic, Stanic, Corluka, Asanović, Biscan, Kranjcar
Eduardo, Pranjic, Dado Pršo, Petric, Lovren
Average players
Livaković, Juranovic, Kramaric, Mario Pašalić,
Lovro Majer, Vlasic, Milan Rapaic, Zvonimir Soldo
Not Impressive
Livaja, Petkovic, Sosa, Stanišić, Šutalo, Barišić
Martin Erlić, Vida, Ivica Ivušić, Labrović,
Ivanušec, Petar Musa, Dion Drena Beljo
Why do you post the same thing every time?? Are you a bit or a real person??
At 23 it’s time to leave
This is a good solid age these good prospects need to be leaving at and make the next step
Let’s hope he keeps progressing
All sorts of josips gonna make the repka legit contenders for a few more years!!!
Dinamo will score another 20 million (plus future transfer) deal with him, like they did for Olmo and Gvardiol.