The next year is going to be weird for Croatians around the globe.
Why?
Luka Modrić – arguably Croatia’s best football player of all time – roughly has 14 months left wearing the red and white checkers. But will he stay full fit? Modrić turns 36 years old on September 9th and has already started the season on the injury list with Real Madrid. Modrić is currently out with an abductor (groin) injury which means he will miss all three Croatia World Cup qualifiers in September. The Vatreni face Russia in Moscow 9/1, Slovakia in Bratislava 9/4, and Slovenia in Split 9/7.
This is Croatia’s toughest week in World Cup qualifying with only the top team in group guaranteed a berth in Qatar. And they will have to do it without their midfield talisman, Luka Modrić.
Insert Mateo Kovačić, who has played alongside Modrić for years, but has never had full reign over the Croatian midfield. Now is his time to shine with Modrić’s ride into the sunset a foregone conclusion during the next year. (The 2022 World Cup kicks off in November).
Kovačić is a great box-to-box midfielder but needs to learn to be more aggressive inside 25 yards offensively. He needs to start ripping shots on goal if he wants to be feared on the pitch. With Modrić’s shadow slowly lifting off of Kovačić, the Chelsea man can begin defining himself this week during World Cup qualifiers, where Croatia need to pick up a minimum of six points.
Kovačić is the man for the job and has been trained to replace Modrić for years. The weight of the Croatian world will be on his shoulders but will he be able to get the job done. The Vatreni cannot afford to have a bad week and all pistons have to be hitting in the midfield with a new generation of players being inserted on defense and on the wings.
Dalić has previously said that the team is aiming for maximum points from these games. Since he has publicly admitted that his coaching at the Euro was poor, I expect the team to come out gunning for wins. The Gvardiol-Mario Fernandes duel will be key. Against Slovakia and Slovenia, it will be the attack against the bunker (need Pasalić in there for those games). It doesn’t matter that Modrić is down. CAM is our deepest position, and Brozović and Kovačić play well together, as we saw against Scotland and Spain. Not easy ready, but definitely should be 9 points.
I thought modric was possibly going to play the Slovenia game in Split? Now he’s out? I’m going to that game too.. smh
I don’t follow too much HNL, so can someone explain Hajduk loaning out arguably their most valuable player, Vuskovic, for two years to a 2. Bundisliga team with an option to buy for 3.5m?
Wasn’t there better teams offering more money?
I think it was just Celtic and Torino that were interested.
Not sure how much money was being offered though.
I don’t know why Hajduk is selling Vuskovic so soon. He’s still only 19 years old. One million euro for a two-year loan is just way too cheap.
Old habits die hard I guess.
Sell off the 19 year old Croatian youngster to the first bidder, and bring in some mediocre veteran at an inflated salary (Hajduk is bringing back Marco Fossati this week).
So poorly managed. They can’t help but blow their load as soon as a girl looks in their direction.
And if Vuskovic does well, Hamburger will only have to pay 3.5m more to buy him out.
If they held onto him and he developed more, they probably double what they got for him.
Zlatko Dalic quote from the presser:
“How many points will be enough for us for Qatar? According to some of my calculations, we will need 20 or 21 for first place, which means that we have to catch another 14, 15 in the next seven games”
This is proof right here that he is a loser.
Calculating the minimum required to get into the World Cup. Setting expectations low.
Guy should be aiming for 21 points in these final 7 games, and here he is trying to set the expectation to 14 points, lol.
So we should expect another couple of losses according to him (despite being in this piece of shit weakass group).
Russia will look for a draw so I’m saying a 0-0. For sure beating Slovakia and hopefully revenge against Slovenia. We shouldn’t walk away with anything less than 6 points. Slovenia hasn’t made shit since 2010, Slovakia got blasted 5-0 by Spain and Russia didn’t make it out of the group either.
6 points, to me, is still a big failure.
There is simply no reason to lose any one of these three games under any circumstance.
You could create an All-star team with all of the top players from Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia…and it would still be a worse team than our team (even without Luka).
Plus, it’s not like Russia, Slovakia or Slovenia are playing great football right now. All three teams are struggling badly to get points. Russia and Slovakia were two of the worst teams at the Euros, and all three teams have struggled in these qualifiers.
We have in-form players in every position on the field.
EVERY position.
Even in our traditionally weak areas like RB, LB, CB, GK, and FW…we actually have at least one player who is playing extremely well right now.
Meanwhile, a lot of Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia’s key players are recently retired or currently out of form.
Absolutely zero excuse right now for us to drop any points whatsoever.
Goal should be 9 full points. Should be disappointed even if we screw up one game and finish with 7 points.
Fully agree with your statement. None of these three teams have prospects like Croatia and no superstars. I see threats from either side.
No threats*
DCC didn’t dress on Saturday for Marseille’s last game. What’s up with that and is he in jeopardy of not being available?
Maybe a pending transfer that is about to be finalized? I dunno.
Wolves made an offer for Caleta-Car, but West Ham is still interested in him.
This window has been full of surprises with Jakic going to Frankfurt, Vuskovic going to Hamburg, Pongracic possibly going to Dortmund, and Barisic possibly going to Roma.
Also seeing Pongracic to Dortmund rumours. Seeing that he can’t get off the bench anyways, it couldn’t hurt, could it?
https://bulinews.com/news/9822/eintracht-frankfurt-take-croatian-midfielder-loan
Eintracht sign both Jakic and Matanovic.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/nikola-vlasic-west-ham-transfer-news-b952869.html
Vlasic to West Ham looks almost done
https://www.ibroxnoise.co.uk/2021/08/rangers-make-move-to-replace-barisic-with-19-year-old/
Barisic to Roma.
Kovacic, Vlasic, Sacic, Pasalic and Moro all deserve minutes. With a Modric out, Badelj dropped..I wanna see new names and a few youngsters playing next month. I just realized our mid are aging. Modric will be 36, Brozovic 29, Perisic is 32 all by this year. I see Sosa as a midfielder? Can he play that position? even though he’s a defender. I’m still confused as to why Vrsaljko is dropped? I’m assuming injuries and not playing at all last season. Now Bradaric, Pongracic Grbic, and Basic should be called up. I don’t need to know why Jedvaj, Rebic, Petkovic. I’m still baffled Brekalo got dropped.
The players who were low on the KM metric in the England and Czech games were dropped. Vrsaljko is still playing for Atleti and is likely to become a starter again when Trippier leaves, but obviously Dalić didn’t like the lack of pace, or perhaps Vrsaljko doesn’t like Dalić. Brekalo and Petković are out for not running enough, for sure. Rebić probably something similar, since he spent a lot of the England game just walking around
Maminjo, you seem to be on top of things…how can we watch Croatia play this week?
I usually just use Saan.tv
the answer is always sportsbay.org for any sport any time
He’s goal
So many injuries for our U21 team, really disappointing. Vidović (17) gets called up which is great.
versus russia this would be a good lineup:
………..….Vlasic……Pasalic….……..
Perisic………………………………Orsic
…………….Brozo…..Kova…..…………
Gvardiol…Vida….DCC………Urem
………..…..….Livakovic…….…..……..
russia isnt a big goal scoring threat, no reason to go to moscow with 5 defenders unless dalic wants to play for the 0-0 draw. unfortunately, i cant see dalic benching lovren, especially when he plays in russia. who knows, maybe he has a good game for once.
Or worse…The Russians know very well that he is a weak link and will exploit this
Vlasic at forward? You got Orsic that should be playing striker and he that had a good euro tournament for as much as he played. Vlasic has the speed to play the wing. Brozo and Kova in the middle sounds fine. I think Vida is trash and shouldn’t play at all. Anyone else but him. He dropped since last WC. Everyone else can stay.
Who’s gonna provide defensive cover for Lovren and Vida?
That’s a bigger issue.
We need Brozo to be his best… and even then, it might not be enough.
Kovacic??
Nah.
He’s nothing like Modric or Brozovic in that regard.
He tends to direct the opposing forwards toward our defenders…whereas Broz and Modric will actually tackle them.
Directing the opposing players to a good CB is ideal, but not when it’s Lovren.
We need to upgrade our CBs before sitting one (or both) of Brozovic and Modric.
Kovacic may be good for us in the future, but only if we have Caleta-Car, Gvardiol and/or Pongracic back there showing us they can handle things (because the Lovren/Vida tandem cannot).
So 3 5 2 is being mentioned livakovic gvardiol vida lovren-perisic kovacic brozovic vlasic juranovic vlasic kramaric starting 11
I wonder if he practices shooting and how it goes when he does. In matches he seems to be in morbid fear of the net. When he does shoot, which is rarely, it’s more of a pass that misfires than an actual shot. It’s really too bad he can’t seem to add this element to his game.
We’re FUCKED
Have you ever seen a worse shooter? His shot is fucked. The way he moves is not built for shooting. Nonetheless he can be pretty great at times