The Champions League quarterfinals are set!
The blockbuster match of the round will take place Friday night when Ivan Rakitić and Ivan Perišić meet as Barcelona take on Bayern Munich in a 1-leg quarterfinal in Portugal. The winner of this game will likely play Manchester City in the semifinals as the rest of the tournament will be played in Lisbon in 1-leg ties; the same format as the World Cup.
Both Croatians got the start for their respective teams on Saturday in victories. Ivan Rakitić opened up the Barcelona match with an assist in the 10′ off a corner kick. Barcelona would take care of business against Napoli winning 3-1 on the night and 4-2 on aggregate.
Rakitić gets the assist off a corner
Ivan Perišić got in on the action as well; scoring Bayern’s second goal in a 4-1 victory over Chelsea. Perišić slotted home a Lewandowski pass from inside the box in the 24′. It will be interesting to see if Perišić gets the start against Barcelona on Friday as he was casually used this season. Bayern absolutely annihilated Chelsea 7-1 on aggregate over the two matches they played.
Perišić Goal
I think in a season from now, half of us will be calling on him to replace Lovren…but Dalic will be loyal to Lovren I think since he was good at WC2018.
Vlasic vs Rakitic, Pongracic vs Lovren, Krama vs Bruno…lots of key decision to be made over the next 10 months.
Pongracic definitely deserves a look. Him, Caleta-Car, and Benkovic are our future CBs.
Not mocking, just keeping things light around this site.
I do have serious concerns about Vrsaljko’s knee.
I do have hope Dalic can successfully navigate the Vlasic Rakitic landscape.
I do hope one of our young CBs can command a starting spot over Lovren. But the job is Lovren’s to lose.
Mock all you want, but I speak the troof
True, let me add:
Vrsaljko is so mean, his knee cap explodes everytime he walks on the field.
Vlasic is so mean, he demands Legend Rakitic hold his beer on the bench.
Lovren is so mean he viciously slide tackles his own son during the worst pandemic of this century. Then posts it on social media.
..but nobody as mean as the Italian assistant to the assistant coach, who faintly spray painted a swastika on the pitch in Split.
Also, another argument for not starting Kovacic and Pasalic is that they are too nice.
You can’t have too many nice guys starting, or your team becomes toothless.
Modric and Rakitic are nice guys, but they are surrounded by mean guys.
Brozovic is a mean drunk who starts fights in hospitals. Rebic is a mean jock who openly stiff arms his opponents on the field. Mandzukic kicks soccer balls at youth academy players during practice as targets. Perisic tells his lame South American club teammates (and their diva wives) to fuck off and kicks English players in the head while scoring game tying goals in World Cup semifinals.
A team comprised of Modric, Rakitic, Kovacic, Pasalic and possibly Kramaric is talented…but a lame team of softies who would not go far in a tournament.
Brekalo telling his team to publicly eff off for telling him to wear a rainbow armband is EXACTLY the kind of BOSS we will need in the starting lineup.
I am not surprised that he’s made more of an impact on the field for us than Kovacic and Pasalic have done in their combined 70 games for us.
I don’t like to group Brekalo with Kovacic and Pasalic.
I think we can all agree that National Team performance takes priority over any performance these guys have at club level. Yes, we use their form at club level to judge them, but it’s in order to gauge how well they can do for us at NT level.
Brekalo has ONLY played well for us at NT level.
Every time he’s on the field with our National Team, something special happens.
You cannot say the same about Kovacic and Pasalic. Those two have had a lot more bad games for us, than good. Pasalic has a much smaller sample, but he’s still played in a dozen games for us, and hasn’t had one good one. Kovacic has been in and out of our lineup for 7 years now, and I can count on my fingers how many good games he’s had for us.
Brekalo needs a change of scenery at club level, no doubt, due to his apparent inconsistency at Wolsburg…but he has been a much better NT performer than any player we have that is not a current starter for our National Team right now (and he only recently turned 22).
Brekalo could easily start for us, but we have a red hot Rebic and our best player (Perisic) currently on the wings.
Brekalo can wait, but make no mistake, he will be one of our best players in the future.
Think we can put to bed the Brekalo and Kovacic “need to start” movement. Not a knock on them, just a validation of the quality we possess.
Imagine if we rolled with Kovacic and Pasalic over any of our starters, like has been suggested? Not a smart move. Quality over youth, all day everyday.
Kovacic got pushed around like a George Washington monument at a BLM riot.
We all know that “croatian jews” first loyalty is to other jews. I have no problem with that. My problem is when you call that truth “hate speech” and attempt to suppress me.
Remember when Mandzukic scored the PENALDO miss and PENALDO didn’t celebrate the goal because PENALDO was upset he didn’t score?
That’s all you need to know about PENALDO. He’s at juve to pad his statistics and juve are stupid to fall for it. The team is useless from the top down.
Hazard, Jovic, Bale, Grietzmann can all fuck off too. They should be ashamed.
That’s odd because Marca wrote that raketa had a forgettable game
There’s seems to be a faction in the Spanish press that wants him gone
Is someone from Barca leaking such information to the press of such opinion
Yes it was not great to see Kova lose possession so easily
Seems to happen to him a lot
So it’s selecting two of lesser evil who wants Barca or Bayern to win this terrible year of 2020
Maybe the answer is who gives a shit really
Looks like Pirlo is taking over at juve
A possible Mandzo return
That would steal a few headlines in the Italian sports press
I don’t give a shit who wins anything. I just don’t want any of our players to get injured
These two are both world class players that have plenty left in the tank. They both have benefited from “casual” use this past season.
I too wonder how much they will play this Friday?
One off World Cup style going forward.
You got to play the nogometaši.
It wasn’t great to see Kona cough up the ball so easily for Perisic’s goal though. Anyway Bayern too good in the end.
Rakitić should have 2 assists already…how the hell was that a handball on Messi on his 2nd goal?!?! VAR man…
Perisic and Rakitic playing exceptionally well today. Easy goal by Perisic and Barca dominating right now.