An assist against Atletico Madrid last week, and a goal against Barcelona today. First name is Luka – can you guess who?
Chances are you’re probably wrong. 18 year-old midfielder Luka Sučić shined again today for Red Bull Salzburg, scoring a goal for the ages against Spanish giants FC Barcelona. In the 43rd minute, Sučić received a pass from the sideline, chipped it into the air, and volleyed into the top-left corner of the net, catching the entire stadium by surprise. There appeared to be a slight deflection. Sučić was voted ‘Player of the Match’, impressing Salzburg supporters yet again.
Sučić has been impressive for the Austrian champions during the current 2021-2022 preseason, assisting against reigning La Liga champions Atletico Madrid in a 1-0 victory, scoring in a 4-1 Austrian Cup victory, and scoring against Barcelona today in a friendly. Salzburg went on to beat Barca 2-1, thanks to a last minute injury time winner.
Luka Sučić continues to make headlines week in and week out. He is tall, strong, fast, and has a beautiful shot. Luka 2.0 is one of Croatia’s biggest talents at the moment, and has caught the eyes of many large European clubs in the past year.
The Sučić show just keeps getting better and better!
Look who scored for not Croatia 🤣
https://streamja.com/bJmjE
Pizdarica
According to Croatiaweek, Luka Sucic is only considering playing for Croatia. Doesn’t sound like he’ll be pulling a Sosa.
Not only is he considering, but he turned Austria down, and confirmed that he only wants to play for Hrvatska:
“The Austrians called three months ago to play for the Austria U-21 team, they also said I would then get a chance to play in the A team but I turned them down. That is because I always had the wish to play for Croatia. That is how it will stay,” Sučić told daily Sportske novosti.
Sučić says the Austrians are constantly trying to secure him but he says it is all in vein.
“They will never get me. I tell them Croatia is my choice and I will not change anything. I feel like a Croat.”
Bravo Luka. Anyone that needs “convincing” to play for Cro doesn’t deserve to be called up. We need players who are full of Croatian pride and are willing to wait their turn. This is a good sign, since he is not pressuring the HNS to hurry up and cap him.
https://football-italia.net/official-rog-suffers-second-anterior-cruciate-ligament-injury/
Poor guy
Does anyone know why Sucic wasn’t even on the roster yesterday?
Brekalo scored a goal yesterday. I haven’t seen it. Was it any good?
Sosa scored and assisted as well. Both were high quality. I really hope that we can put the past to bed and bring him into the fold.
https://streamja.com/RABeM
https://streamja.com/nXdgp
Don’t quote me on this, but I heard he felt a bit sick and was rested. Nothing big, he’s back in training. Aaronson shat the bed, so expect Sucic to finally start at AM next game.
Budimir got two
I say start Kovacic as striker
Prove me wrong
Uruguay provides much more talent than we do per capita. They don’t have the luxury to poach from neighboring countries. Solid bunch there.
Ziva – Any new recommendations on living my best ‘za dom … spremni’ lifestyle in the time of COVID? Is there updated guidance?
Sarma and rakija both use their magical powers to destroy the Kung fu flu!
:(I when people thought Croatia make a good thing -> for Olympic
but not even so close, the previous one is still better with 5 gold medals!
just like before – when our NT made WC Final
| but forgot about – what happened – that cause stupid Dalic still stay here.
and will cost us for not qualifying the next WC
Vladimir Petkovic is now coaching G. bordeux. also check out his great effort from Uremovic https://youtu.be/dU_-1AxR2zo?t=34
@ Živa
Di si Ti???!!
Sve ok.
Homer or visionary would call Luka Modrić world class when Levy gave him the shaft on delayed transfer.
Landing him late into toxic Mourinho Madrid locker room.
The rest is history.
Sometimes we need to be like Grgur Ninski and take a stand for the Soul of our people.
Bez problem.
Glad to have you back.
We need your commentary as we navigate these next 3 matches with all the HNS shenanigans.
Watching MLS Portland-RSL. Debut for latter of Toni Datković, hand ball VAR PK call against him nary 10 minutes in. All I got. Never heard of him LOL.
I never said Modric was a bust I said he was playing like a bust. The Real fans were saying that at the time also. Only a homer would of called Modric world class at that time.
Why would you base your own esteemed opinion on what the Real Madrid fans say? Aren’t they known for premature rash assessments?
Whether you said he was playing like one or was one it was your wishful thinking
@ Ziva
Pazi ..
Calling yet another Luka a bust?
Now the kid is going to become world class.
Lol.
Just kidding brate.
The kid is getting meaningful minutes for one of the best developmental clubs in Europe.
He already has made a better choice than 90% of our prodigies that make big money moves to the bench during their 18-22 yrs of age.
The truth is not me. He imitates me well and I am flattered but he is not me. He could never be the ombudsman I was for this site.
Ziva uses Xbox for predictions and his guy at the savez
While the truth uses PlayStation and nikola Kalinic for his
So against madrid sucic gets an assist by passing the ball to a player who then takes five dribble moves and scores
Then against Barcelona he hits a shot that would’ve been wildly off target if not for a deflection
And as usual, here comes the coronation ceremony
I hope he works out but theres a pretty good chance
Look I Suck-ic will one day be added to the bust list
Assuming he even plays for Croatia
You must live a very depressing life.
Of course you’re pulling for him!
Great players make their own luck
There is a photo on the federation website of kustic Dalic corluka and pletikosa
That says it all about the future of Croatian football
Rewatched the Spain match recently and we definitely had our moments. Technically we can hang. And they just might be the most technical side out there. Our talent alone will get us into tournaments but we’re definitely not maximizing it with our management
That’s the sad thing. The mismanagement of talent. You have to wonder how much better we could be with a proper coach
Obviously it’s not so cut and dry but one would think 15–20 percent better for sure overall
I still say we hire an international coach. What’s there to lose? We’ve had succession with strictly Croatian managers but haven’t won anything. Seek some talent out of Europe or South America. It’s all former Croatian players as our management that haven’t had any coaching experience. I understand it’s not a major role but you can’t expect to beat top national teams technically or strategically with only home grown staff.
The first 30 minutes of the Spain game looked like we were playing with 7 men
Their fluke own goal was the only thing keeping it from a real embarrassment
How we got to extra time after being dominated I still can’t believe it?
Those homer glasses have night vision too?
It’s become a fuckin boys club.
If you’ve played for the National Team then you can coach them too
It’s a cult* they all do favours for each other since Suker was hired. Croatian corruption at its finest.
Croatian Assassin – all Dalic did in 2018 was sit on the bench and pray – we might as well hire Fr. Ivica at any Croatian church in North America -they have far more technical coaching skills and they probably pray better -but that can be argued too-LOL
That’s what I’m saying…Dalic had no contribution to 2018. The players just had good chemistry and it was a well balanced squad that played exceptional. Now we have Pletikosa, Olic, Corluka, and Vuko as the guys on the bench? Lol that’s sad. No winning team of any major titles have ex players to seek talent and assist the team.
Well, it looks like Kustic is moving forward with Dalic as coach (and Corluka and Olic as assistant coaches).
Also, we have Pletikosa as our Technical Director of Football, lol.
Aside from Dalic’s experience in Saudia Arabia…What’s the combined experience of all these guys in football management roles?
A few months maybe? lol
Disappointing. As fun as it was, we would have been better off if we didn’t come back against Spain and was embarrassed to the point where everyone would of called for Dalic’s dismissal. Those two goals saved his job and made a lot of people forget all of the ineptitude that got us into that hole to begin with.
Expect more of the same coming up.
I think we draw this very weak Russia team in Russia, and it will be heralded as a positive.
Over these past three years, the messaging that Dalic has constantly given is that we should be happy to draw any top-25 team, and lose to any top-10 team.
Victories should only be expected against teams with a very low ranking (like Scotland).
Well after the 2018 World Cup. We don’t have the best track record.
Lost to Hungary
Drew Azerbaijan
Gave up 5 goals to Spain
Drew Czech Republic
Beat Cyprus 1-0
Lost to Slovenia
Drew Wales
The next three games in September have me worried. Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Did we forget that we lost 6-0 to Spain right after the 2018 World Cup.
Man, is Austria gonna good. Hoo boy. Country to look out for.
Change that Slavs* team is made up of Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and other Balkan nations.
It’s jugoslavia with a different system
If they can make all the talent play together they can do something big
Croats are only partially Slavic dude!
What else are they? Enlighten me.
Take a DNA test. They are mostly descended from that regions long established population. Slavic mixture is a minority of their make up. Do you feel a kinship with say Polish people? We don’t look like them do we?
I’d say we do. Big blonde strong. I know a Polack that looks just like me and my Polish neighbour’s could totally pass as Hrvati.
Ivo is actually correct.
Croats (especially in the South) actually have alot (if not more) similarities with Scandinavians (genetically) than they do with other Slavic speaking nations.
I believe the gene is called Haplogroup-I and when you look at the heat map, it looks like a bunch of Scandinavians migrated south until they hit water (the Adriatic), whereas the countries in between have much less of this gene in their population pool. The Dalmatinci and Hercegovci actually now have more of this gene than the original Scandinavians.
The other two European genes are Haplogroup R1a and Haplogroup R1b, with R1a being more western European and R1b being more eastern European. R1b is the one that dominates most Slavic speaking nations. Croatia has this too, but have more of a combination of all three…moreso heavy on the Haplogroup-I and R1b than R1a.
Most interestingly, Croatia has the highest % makeup of all of these three European genes, making them the “most European” nation in Europe with little to no influence from outside Europe (as other European countries do tend to have more influence from other continents).
I think this is why a lot of those hardcore white nationalist types in the US love Croatia so much, because of their genetics lol.
@Poglavnik
Maybe they’re white Croats?
“It is interesting to add that according to some American documents from the beginning of the 20th century there were about 100,000 immigrants to the USA born around Krakow (Poland) who declared themselves to be Bielo-Chorvats, i.e. White Croats by nationality. See US Senate-Reports on the Immigration commission, Dictionary of races or peoples, Washington DC, 1911, p. 40, 43, 105.”
Maminjo’s on wikipedia reading up on the white Croats as we speak.
Kova is finally coming around
But how many bloody chances did he get when he was a no show for many games
Mix it up
The fact that orsic sat around most of nations league games while playing well regularly just makes no sense at all
And if mamic still was running things. Wouldn’t he push an orsic start at euro?
Like he ain’t getting any younger
The money is there to make off him now
That’s why Dalic is a bum. Refuses to acknowledge Orsic… Rebic & Krama are overrated. They both have one good tournament and he thinks they can carry the offence. Orsic, Colak, Budimir, Ivanusec are the future.
No, Orsic-Budimir-Colak are the present. These guys are all in their late twenties how is that the future? We have much more talented youngsters in the pipeline. Budimir deserves a change (2 goals in a preseason friendly as of right now) and so does Orsic. Čolak only if he continues to be consistent.
Who else in the making is the future? Maybe short term they can play but why not? Just because they are in the late twenties doesn’t mean they can’t play for 2-4 years. Point taken, but who else is talented and young?
Literally all our U21 players and a bunch of the U17s-U19s.
Who else besides Musa & Brekalo? Any big names that stick out?
Musa isnt that great to be honest. If we’re strictly talking attacking talents (ST, LW, RW, CAM) then;
U23- Vlasic, Brekalo, Ivanusec, Majer, etc
U21- Spikic, Mitrovic, etc
U19- Biuk, Ljubicic, Saranic, Sucic, etc
U17- Zvonarek, Brkljaca, etc
And this is just quickly off the top of my head.
We’re working on an article for the top talents in every position, including anyone from the age of 16 to being on the periphery of the squad (Vlasic, DCC included).
When that’s out you’ll see how many we have and we’ll give a description of each.
I know Croats are generally later to mature but surely one of these days we will have a teenager who can impact at world level like other countries
There is no way all these countries have some sort of special genetics over us to develop early
Not necessarily saying this cause of sucic. But just in general
Either way cap that kid
Dalic is a mess
You can’t tell me sosa at 23 and experienced in bundesliga being one of the top LBs this season wouldn’t have been an overall better choice then gvardiol
I’m not saying sosa should have played But I’m saying dalic needs to try these kids. We got slaughtered in nations league anyways. Let the kids play a half
Other countries having good teenage players has little to do with genetics, and more to do with the creative style of play.
When your game is based on being both skilled and creative (the Croatian way) your players will have a long shelf life and will be able to play well into their 30s.
This gives little chance for young players cracking your squad. Let’s face it, if Rakitić didn’t retire, he would still be starting (as he’s still very capable to do so) and Vlašić would have never gotten the chance to break out for us.
If your game is based on any physical elements… Then you will likely get worse once you pass your mid 20s (which explains why Nigeria leads all countries in youth World Cup titles, but can’t go far in senior tournaments).
I think experience plays a big part in being creative. It’s why I think Luka seems to be better in his 30s than his 20s.
We seem to be doing well in youth tournaments lately, so it’s not like we don’t have teenagers as good as other countries. But I prefer that we have these creative types with longer shelf life. I don’t want a bunch of Pjacas, who get your hopes up with their talent… then they lose half a step and become obsolete.
Total deflection or it was going way out over the bar. Can we stop exaggerating and ignoring what is clear from simply watching the replay?
Who cares.
It was a good effort on goal, and sometimes you get lucky. Taking the shot from his position was the absolute right thing to do, which signals that the kid has good fundamentals. Mateo Kovacic would never do this in a million scenarios.
Also, people are hyping up Sucic with good reason, not just because of this goal…but because he seems to keep making strides forward every few months. His development has been going well. Remember, he’s STILL only 18 years of age. He’s worth a callup already. Give him a few minutes off the bench and see what he can do. Integrate him early.
May be premature but he does indeed look poised and is built very well. It will very interesting where his next club will be and where his play will be better suited…..Bundesliga or La Liga?
He can play in La Liga… very technical, quick and speed.
You call yourself an assasin
Take Dalic out
Would have probably been better off with sucic over rebic last month
I get we like to overhype
But cap this kid ASAP
I know he wants to play for us but still cap him
And bring sosa up and let’s see him
Dalic time to go
I can already see the 2022 World Cup team forming. Sacic, Vlasic, Brekalo, Sosa (hopefully) Pongracic, Gvardiol, CC, Bradaric, Grbic, Semper, Ivanusec, Basic, Moro. There will also be some vets and prime guys blended in. As long as Dalic leaves. This youth looks more promising than previous years. We chance to do damage the next few tournaments. What’s key to the success is seeking better goalkeepers, consistent defence, and fresh talent that can score consistently. Three major issues that we’ve faced before. I’m convinced with the right coaching, management and preparation, this nation can capture gold one day. Time to let out expired players go and start over. I’m pumped for the games in September.
If Dalić is still coach (which I assume he will be since he hasn’t been fired yet by Kustić) then there is zero chance these young guys are integrated for WC2022.
Dalić is sticking with Lovren and Vida, and our World Cup squad will probably be similar to what we roll out in these remaining qualifiers (which will probably be just a variation of our Euro 2021 squad).
I guarantee you that we found out about this Sučić goal before he did. I don’t think he watches club games of any of our players, otherwise he would have some understanding of where they are most effective on the pitch. I’m really curious to know if he’s even started preparing for the upcoming Russia match.
Well if that’s the case then we are finished. We can kiss Qatar or any future tournament goodbye. Lovren & Vida are out to lunch, Vrsaljko is a bandaid, and the rest are way too old. I’ll be frustrated if his talent goes to waste. If Dalic knew what was good for him. He’d put his tail in between his legs and be humble and leave. The man is too stubborn to acknowledge his wrongdoings and that he’s overstayed his welcome. When Bilic left it was on good terms and achieved legitimate success. He’s arguably the worst coach we’ve had since Cacic. I’m sick and tired of him getting praise for the final when he contributed minimal to almost no success that year. Ever since that, it’s been all done hill for him and will continue to be as long as he’s in charge.