Mateo Kovačič scored the opening goal Tuesday night in Austria as Chelsea defeated Red Bull Salzburg 2-1 to top their group and book tickets to the Champions League Round of 16. Kova asked for a pass at the top of the box and awkwardly stabbed at the ball with his left foot. It didn’t look like a full wind up, but there was enough power and placement on the ball to freeze the Salzburg keeper. Will Chelsea play their A-squad versus Dinamo Zagreb next week now that they have secured top spot in group? We shall see.
Kova received an 8/10 grade from SportBible as he “was one of Chelsea’s stand out performers in Austria. A fantastic strike into the top corner marked a rare goal for the midfielder. Kovačić was subbed off as Graham Potter looks to be careful with his injury issues, with his performance tonight showcasing why his manager values him so highly.”
Joško Gvardiol scored a rare goal as well Tuesday night in Germany against Real Madrid, who already punched their ticket to the Round of 16 prior to kickoff. Belgian keeper, Thibaut Courtois, parried a loose ball in the box in Gvardiol’s direction with the 20 year-old defender slamming the ball in the back of the net with his head. The goal would open Leipzig’s account on their way to a 3-2 victory that puts them in pole position for a R16 berth. If Red Bull Leipzig win/draw versus Shakhtar Donetsk next week in Ukraine, they will qualify for the Round of 16 next year.
Gvardiol was given a 8/10 from 90min.com as he was “Alive in the box to bag a crucial goal and a mammoth at the back. Huge performance on the big stage.”
We need a target man so bad
Krama isn’t the one to knock those headers down
We can’t take advantage of the nice passes from sosa
Perisic luka and co
Who will it be???
Mandzo put him self on the 55 list;)
Stipe Perica with a brace for Standard today.
Frig he’s only 27, seems a heck of a lot older for some reason.
Does he get a look?
He doesn’t even get a sniff let alone a look,come on Z!
He’s done nothing the last 5 years and if scoring 2 goals in a league not much better than ours warrants a look then we are extremely lacking and desperate!
Seriously man, every time someone scores do they deserve a look lol!! I honestly believe the three people right now are Colak, Ljubicic, and Livaja who are scoring the most. Musa is starting to get there… These are the only people that have a decent goal count next to their name right now.
You may also add onto that with Petko and Orsic right behind. Other than these people I am not sure who Dalic can rely on.
https://www.goalstube.online/2022/10/bournemouth-tottenham.html?m=m4
Perisic with another peach from the corner. He’s making a habit of bailing Tottenham out.
Colak with another goal after a relatively quiet period.
Beauty of a cross from Sosa
https://www.goalstube.online/2022/10/stuttgart-augsburg.html?m=m2
Indeed it was, right footed no less.
Yeah, Sosa has become indispensable Imo.
Dude might be the key to the whole operation. Very smooth
Luka says hold my 🍺 Z!
Ya he is going to play a huge factor if we will do anything in Qatar
His passing is something special
Does anyone know if the initial expanded World Cup roster pool for Croatia was released? Apparently teams had to submit one to fifa this week ?
55 players on the list was due on 21 October. Croatian FA said that they will not publish this list. 35 player list is due on 31 October and I have not seen anything to suggest that this list will be released to the public either unless it is leaked to the media?
Final list of 23 – 26 players has to be in with FIFA by 14 November.
The NFL would have made each list public, and allowed the media to slowly leak it to build Excitement!
Either way I’d love to see who’s on it!
Yeah, a lot of ppl would. No drama on the obvious names of course.
But keep in mind once the 26 player roster finalized, you can still make a switch 24 hours before a game if there is an injury (or Covid I believe). But the caveat is, the pool of players you can pull from has to be from this 55 player list. So did Dalic throw Rakitic in there? Rebic? would be interesting to see.
“Knjaz kod Vatrenih”
https://youtu.be/tYxyBejkUrU
HRT has a good show interviewing some of our players. Interviews with Majer, Juranović and Barišić, Perišić, and Sosa. I watched the first few episodes, and I couldn’t believe how popular Juranović is in Scotland! Every person on the street stopped him for a picture!
farca fail to advance out of group stage again !!
Rakitic has not been replaced.
I am so glad that there is not one nogometaš at that club, so I don’t have to support an ounce of that hypocrisy.
Luka Modrić representing on the “captains” Netflix series.
The legend grows.
Full respect to Aubemayang for choosing Gabon over colonial France where they exploit all of Africa to win world cups.
That hypocrisy transcends farca any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
the only people being exploited are native french. africans’ standard of living in france is much much higher than in africa.
I don’t think smolcic has been talked about much here cause I don’t recall hearing his name and I’m on this more then a Croat on sale
Getting some praise online I see as well
Amazing how many potential prospects we have for cb when we had very little the past 10-15 years overall
There was an article about him when he signed with Frankfurt.
He did at the start of the year when he was at Rijeka and then signed by Frankfurt in January.
But since the season started, he hasn’t been getting a lot of games and is usually on the bench for Frankfurt, hopefully it changes from here after the game against Marseille.
Would you guys give luka the senior job coach after he retires from play automatically??
Just a fun question
Cause obviously If he wants he would fast track as head coach
Nope.
I’d tell him to fuck off and go coach a club team for 10+ years before coming to the National Team.
Hiring the inexperienced former players in Bilic, Stimac, and Kovac cost us dearly.
Stimac had our worst qualifying campaign ever (with three losses) and Kovac capped our performance at WC2014 (and almost cost us Euro2016 qualification).
Bilic was okay, but he is what he is. A coach that starts strong, then begins to falter as time passes. He’s done this with every team he coaches. I don’t blame him for failing to qualify for WC2010, but many people do.
But look at all the growing pains that coaches like Tudor, Prosinecki, Biscan, and Juric have been going through.
Tudor was a loose cannon, who always starts strong but then has some implosion. It looks like he’s been getting better over the past couple of years, but I would have hated if we hired him early and one of those implosions cost us a World Cup.
Juric is also another one that has been very highly touted in Italian media…but the results have been neither good nor bad. We’ll know more when more time passes.
Prosinecki and Biscan both looked pretty good in their first few coaching gigs…but we also now have enough data on them to see their limitations. Prosinecki was a big fan-favorite as a future coach, now nobody mentions him anymore due to his recent lack of success.
Biscan seems to be the next coach in line, but he’s also showing cracks with his overly defensive coaching style that is not taking advantage of our offensively creative footballing culture.
These are good things to know, which probably weren’t apparent after the first few years of coaching.
Five years ago, Prosinecki would have probably been on top of the list among these four examples…but now, he’d probably be ranked last if you ask anyone.
I lost a lot of respect for Niko Kovac during his ‘Felix Magath German disciplinarian’ style being touted as some that our National Team needed, but it failed miserably and his lack of coaching skills showed.
I doubt he cared much, because it launched his coaching career.
For Luka’s sake, I would hate to see him ruin his reputation and botch a World Cup for us.
I’d tell him to put in some coaching years at Dinamo or wherever, and see if you have what it takes before you mess up on a grand scale.
Dalić had a few years of success at clubs behind him, with very little playing experience, and he’s the most successful HNS coach so far. I hope he can take the team back to the world cup final.
Lovren will play in the opening match _
then — >:> Marocco will punish us
Blame Dalic for his stupidity !!!
LA NOT I’m more concerned with the Canucks… long range weather forecast has the temps dipping to 110 Fahrenheit giving the Canadians an unfair advantage.
It shows just how important (even a little) coaching experience is.
Dalic did have a few years experience. It wasn’t the greatest, but it was far better than going completely fresh with a rookie coach.
I don’t think Luka would, he is very aware it is a learning process, you start small to gain some success then you slowing move to a bigger club then when you have success there you make that kind of a move. It cannot be done right off the start.
I know a lot of people on this site speak negatively about Dalic, I am critic of his too sometimes, but the guy has achieved a lot for our National squad so I give him kudos for that. We will have to wait and see how he does with selections and how well we will do this time around for the World Cup.
Good to see both smolcic and jakic starting in the champions league today
smolcic had some nice moves but made a bad pass that could have resulted in a goal. jakic playing right cb this time blocked a sure goal in the 80th min.
Two Croats starting cb for a German team in champions league?? Impressive
And ironically one isn’t really even considered for repka yet and the other one isn’t even a cb
Our defence will be in good shape for a few years it seems
Brozović is not starting or on the bench today for Inter.
Last month they said he might be back today. I’m starting to get a little worried.
It’s imperative he’s healthy and in our lineup next month.
Brozović not starting is good news.
Bringing him in slowly is exactly what we want. He doesn’t need to prove anything anymore. He’s a lock to start for us, and he will deliver. It’s all about being fit (which coming off the bench will provide) and staying injury-free.
If it were up to me, I would want Modric, Brozovic, Kovacic, Gvardiol and Perisic to all come off the bench for their clubs right now. Just play enough to stay fully fit, but not burnt out for the World Cup.
For what’s it’s worth in the goal scoring metric for our team selection right now the 3 players scoring the most currently for club are: Colak, Ljubicic, and Livaja. They each are collectively holding the top of that metric in their respective leagues.
Maybe Ljubicic and Colak should get a call up as well.
Should also be worth mentioning, although it could change, that Livaja is holding the top of the assists metric as well. Maybe he is turning things around from earlier this season.
Watched him play for Salzburg on Tuesday. He came off after 60 minutes or so and did not look injured.
Does anyone know or have heard about Sucic’s injury I just got wind of this. Was curious if anyone has heard anything, or knows if he is due to get better or questionable for the world cup??
Perisic definitely gets the captain till retirement once luka goes
Most experience, plays as hard as anyone, will choke a player out
Looks like Kovacic is willing to do anyting for a starting position
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0bgicoR50s
Kovacic has been exposed long ago one too many times. Just another figurative incident. I always fancied croatians to be conservative people, who will sign the cross after a goal, before doing anything like this. But you can’t stereotype any group of people even your own. I guess especially multi-millionaire elite diaspora. The money goes to the wallet i glava. I don’t think he will ever replace Modric unfortunately.
Anyone here watch the Modric parts of “Captains” on FIFA+? His parts are pretty good. A couple of observations:
1 – There is a cool exchange between him and Livakovic after Liva got benched in favor of Grbic for the final qualifying game at home against Russia. Very candid comments by Luka.
2 – With his 3rd child (maybe 3 years old?), the kid spoke only English words to Luka, and Luka responded to her in English. I found that interesting for a Croatian family that lives in Spain (the older 2 kids spoke Croatian to Luka, but clearly spoke English too. Maybe they’re instill to get English roots in at an early age, and then ease into Croatian later)
Good documentary…there’s lots of great “behind the scenes” moments that are fascinating to see. The scene with Livakovic and Modric really shows that Luka cares about his fellow players, and that he is taking his role as captain, and a role model, very seriously. He was consoling Liva, but also telling him the cold hard truth about how he hasn’t been performing well. After watching this, I realized that Luka is just as important off the field. He seems to have full control over the locker room. I also believe that Dalic wouldn’t “expel” any player from the team without Luka’s blessing, or advice.
That’s strange, I was born to two Croatian parents in Australia and didn’t know English when I started school in the country I was born.
Today’s result in U17 Croatia 2 v Sweden 2. Luka Vuskovic gave us the lead in the 3rd minute with a header following a corner. We were 2 – 0 up after 17 minutes but then went ultra-defensive and allowed Sweden to make it 2 – 2 midway through the second half. In the end lucky to hold on for a draw.
After scoring a lucky goal in the 90th minute and winning 1 – 0 against Albania on Sunday we have come second in our group on 4 points and have progressed to the Elite round of qualifiers. However, I don’t give us any chance of qualifying for the EUROS. This bunch of kids is the worst that I have seen at our youth level for a long time. Most of them are utterly useless and are wasting their time playing the sport. Got no idea how some of them got selected to represent Croatia at this level? surely, we must have better 16-year-old players out there? or maybe not?
15-year-old Luka Vuskovic is an exceptional talent as a central defender – plays with both feet which is rare. Very good in the air, technically gifted and has a bit of pace as well. Definitely one to watch in the coming years.
I think Kovacic is a great talent but I dunno if he is consistent with the National Team as much as he is at club level. If he can translate this kind of success to the National Team it would be great. But a few of the games I saw him playing in the Nations League I saw a lot of mistakes from his end. Not saying it can’t happen, but it throws a big question mark on him at times. If your wondering what I mean, and I am sure the question will come up, he had few give aways and lost possession from his end of the field. Misplaced passes, among other things.
Not saying for him not to be called up, I think he will be and should be called up.
His call up is a full-on conclusion and is unfortunately in Modric’s viewpoint, his heir apparent as team captain. He is not a young chap still trying to prove himself, so unless he is hurt badly, will be called up 100%. Everyone was hoping he would development into a transformative player, but he is what he is. No one seems to give up on him and the activity he provides usually does not show up on the score sheet, even less than modric. Let’s face everyone who is not Luka Modric is somewhat of a disappoint, for us rabid fans who just what the national team to win the world cup. But what makes modric really great is that he performs better than the other 99%, so hard shoes to fill.
I personally think Broz or Perisic should have the captain’s band after Modric, just my view.
I agree with your Perisic stance.
Our only hope is that Kovacic somehow would player better without Modric on the field, by taking on a bigger role in the midfield.
If not, then we’re probably better off looking forward toward Majer and Sucic to provide what we need alongside Brozovic.
If Sucic and Majer continue to grow at the same rate as they have been in these past 18 months, then Kovacic will be out of a job (with his only saving grace being the unwarranted perception of him being Luka’s heir).
Ive got a flashback from the past kids, remember this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z80929puDAo
Simic getting lambasted online for a submarine type foul on Thiago Silva
Maybe someone will find a clip to share
Not clean but I will say this. The kid is young and is showing fight. Once he learns to really learn to fight clean and hard like veteran. He may be mandzo 2.0.
I was watching the end of the match when the foul happened, it was nothing nasty from Simic. Thiago Silva fall awkwardly on his shoulders and neck. It was a foul and no yellow card was issued. He did get a yellow card a few minutes later for another challenge.
Great news on Gvardiol
Let’s hope kova Luka and broz all rest up now
Geez that’s the whole midfield with knocks
Soem of you said liva was not at fault for any of the goals
That’s good news. Still concerning to conceive 4. It’s still can’t be great for his confidence
I hope he somehow stands on his head for a month in Qatar