Former Dinamo Zagreb Academy Director and HNS Technical Director, Romeo Jozak, gives CroatianSports.com his predictions for EURO 2021. He answers the same 9 questions we all answered earlier in the week. He says Gvardiol should start vs. England, alongside Kovačić in the midfield and Rebić as striker.
(Video quality is choppy only for first 50 seconds)
Nice interview.
Romeo is a genius. He obviously believes in Kovačić, and values his worth to the national team.
@ Cigan Fair enough.
Even still I think having Rebic press up front brings back the way we were successful. He’s never been great with the ball but he can press, has pace and is strong on the ball and doesn’t get pushed off easily.
Petkovic and his lazy ways hasn’t offered anything as of late. Budimir isn’t quick nor can he hold up the ball/is strong on the ball. We realistically don’t have any great choices.
Great job, Ante.
Romeo Jozak seems a intelligent guy. It would be great to have him work for the Savez.
I would take an in form Kalinic over Petkovic hands down.
@Cigan
Earlier in the season Rebic wasnt great. When Ibra went down in the last part of the season Rebic had a game player as striker! (3 goals and an assist). He was starting to play much better in the position.
That being said I agree that we need to incorporate Krama in his club role for some matchups.
I think we can all see that incorporating ‘me first’ and selfish/lazy players isn’t easy (Krama/Petko). They disrupt the chemistry bigtime. Dalic sending Kalinic home was the best thing that happened in 2018.
Everyone also needs to remember there will be different lineups and tactics for different games. I can’t understand why everyone is hating on Dalic so much. Yes, he’s had some misteps and tried some things that were awful, but he experimented and moved on.
He’s from Livno after all which automatically makes him awesome already! Lol 🙂
So are Kovac, Suker and Mamic lol 😉
@Maminjo
We can’t all be perfect lol.
Although I bet you loved both Kovac and Suker as players?
Agreed love all hercegovcis
God bless them
Even Sosa? 🙂
i watch milan every week. rebic having to play striker was Horrible!! which is why they got mandzukic in the second half of the season. first half of the season there was no backup for ibra, so when he got injured, rebic/Leo playing striker was the only option. all croatia and milan fans know how rebic has the worst first touch ever, when ur playing in a wide position that lousy first touch doesnt matter much cuz you have tons of space. but rebic was playing striker, ball comes to him and bounces off his shin 4 yards away and he gets swamped by 3 defenders who strip the ball away from him. You need to have a good first touch like ibra or petkovic and can control the ball and then lay it off easily.
That torino game was already 4-0, they had already given up before rebic even started scoring. Watch the rebic highlights from that game, rebic had a great game but he’s actually not even really playing striker at all, and was most dangerous when coming down the wing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC5oJLdkxcQ
first goal he scores he runs down from the left hand side and bombs it in. second goal Leo started playing striker and passed to rebic for an open goal tap in. third goal he scores with his knee after he is left unmarked in the box from a cross.
Just because soccer websites lists him as a certain role pregame doesn’t necessarily mean that is where he was playing. He was still attacking down the lefthand side the majority of the game. You could see in the first half before Leo came on, that when rebic did his dribble run move on the wing that kessie (number 79) would sprint into the box as the striker role.
Again, ppl just look at the lineups and score sheets and dont actually watch the games.
Ante- great interview- you and Romeo are such a good tandem- I said Kova and Modric will be on the field together- there is no turning back now- Gvardiol is going to play and we’ll take it from there- very entertaining interview -well done, mladi Ante.
Thanks C-town. He’s cooking up some big stuff. Stay tuned. Great to have him part of the team- both as a fan and professionally.
Fantastic interview, Ante. Kudos to you, you and Romeo have a good chemistry when having a chat… makes it a good watch.
Yes I love a good bromance
Keep up the good work ante
It’s too late now to dump on Dalic or any players to be selected in the starting 11 at this point in time
We need to be united and focused to come out of this England game on top
Za dom spremni
Thanks buddy. Nice gold trophy btw. The ranking system is only working for you and a few others. Still need to fix it.
Thanks ante
I always go for gold hahaha
hello? HELLO!?!?!? rebic striker?!?! did dalic not watch milan when ibra was injured?
Our defense is bad, but our attack is worse! We are lost in the final third. But its not cuz our players are shit, its cuz Dalic is shit!
EVERYONE! Look at this Graph:
https://i.redd.it/zb4axu5k9a471.png
Out of the top 20 or so goalscoring threats, two of those are croats, kramaric and budimir. Im not a genius, but maybe, just maybe if we played both kramaric and budimir up top at the same time, just maybe we’d have a decent attack. I feel like they would compliment each other so well. So why has dalic not tested out this potentially killer combo?? FFS KRAMARIC scored 20 goals this season! start building the fucking team around him. “bUt kRaMaRiC pLaYs bAd wHEn he pLaYs fOr uS”. Yes! because he is being played as a winger or lone striker! and the one time he played CAM he had players like brekalo, vlasic, and orsic around him, instead of players like rebic, perisic, budimir/petkovic.
kramaric is massively disrespected among our fans, and its a huge disgrace. “bUt kRaMaRiC iS sElFiSh!’ No! Belgium game for example, kramaric passes to perisic right in front of goal who misses an open sitter! then in the second half kramaric lays the ball off to rebic who cant finish 6 meters from goal LOL. should have ended the game with 2 assists, smh.
I would rather have 4 ugly scrappy olic tap in goals from budimir, than one messi like goal from petkovic.
kovacic could start and we would have more possession, but I don’t want a boring 0-0 portugal swamp game like in 2016. Unleash the cannons all out attack go for their throat. this england team will crumble. i pray dalic doesnt play for the draw
I agree with Cigan je cigan 100%.
Budimir + Kramaric should be starting up front together.
If they can score in La Liga and the Bundesliga at that rate they can score anywhere. Just get them the ball. It will work!!!
Bog i Hrvati!
I think everyone wanted to see either a two striker formation or one where Krama plays right behind the špica.
Good graph. I am not sold on Budimir, but he only played in a small sample for us (without Krama for the most part) so it’s hard to judge.
It is laughable that one of the highest scoring Bundesliga players can’t crack the starting eleven of a team that continues to struggle scoring.
If we had some sort of success already that we didn’t want to mess with, then fine. But we haven’t done anything impressive offensively in years.
Dalić should be watching game tape of Hoffenheim’s entire season, and study it. I always question what these coaches do for preparation. I bet you he hasn’t watched one full game
@Slavonac how would you feel if you were in Jozak’s shoes and Ante was pressing you for a risky answer? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to do many interviews with Ante again after that…We know Petko is lazy. How will Romeo confirming that help Petko’s case, our stance, or Jozak’s personal relationship with players he’s affiliated with?
Great stuff in the interview Ante!
Did you read my explanation below U14?
“ Well, when I said uncomfortable…I meant you should try to (in a polite way) get him to explain why coaches have a hard time with him. I see that many people really want him in the lineup (Maminjo) and yet, most people don’t see his lack of interest and energy.”
There’s a way to ask questions. I probably shouldn’t have used the word “uncomfortable”…I was trying to say Kvartuc should try and get an explanation…I think that’s a fair question!
Ante…great interview btw!! Keep up the great work!
Hvala imenjaku 🙂 Gotta keep pumping these out for you guys…
I had posted Rebic up top earlier in the week as my preferred spot for him given our options. He’ll be able to play the pressing style that made us successful – hence the reason to have Vlasic play wing in my opinion.
I’d like to see us incorporate Krama in his usual role but Jozak did nail it, Kovacic offers more experience playing in England and against those players. It also would allow Modric to play further ahead and they can easily adjust and have him
play further up knowing Brozo and Kova will hold things down.
More importantly, I hope he’s right and Gvardiol starts…although I don’t think he will against England. He’s miles better than Barisic….
I actually think we have the ability to take this game but I actually think this game ends in a draw.
I’m so pumped to see them really play a meaningful game with their full lineup and basically injury free.
U Boj!!!
Good to see you and Romeo are in sync Ante but I would love to see you make him a bit uncomfortable and ask him some very direct questions and then press him for his answer and not the political answer.
He should tell us why Petkovic is always out of favour with his managers and is he lazy…plain and simple questions.
Why do you want to make the person you’re interviewing uncomfortable? I never understood that. I invited him on to answer some footy questions? Good journalism is not making the interviewee uncomfortable.
Jozak said in a previous interview with me that Petkovic is the biggest headcase/trouble maker he has ever coached. Take that for what you will. The dude is still playing in the HNL.
Well, when I said uncomfortable…I meant you should try to (in a polite way) get him to explain why coaches have a hard time with him. I see that many people really want him in the lineup (Maminjo) and yet, most people don’t see his lack of interest and energy.
Fair enough. But I cover everything with them before. Some things they don’t want to talk about. And that’s that.