22 year-old Marin Ljubičić scored on his Bundesliga debut Saturday for new club, Union Berlin. The former Hajduk striker came off the bench in the 59′ and slotted home past the Hoffenheim keeper only two minutes later. Ljubičić scored 19 goals in 61 matches for Austrian side LASK since 2023. We should all have eyes on Ljubičić as Croatia now has another striker playing in the Bundesliga. Andrej Kramarić played the full 90 minutes in the 4-0 Hoffenheim loss to Union Berlin. Josip Juranović played 76 minutes for Union Berlin at right back before being subbed off.
Luka Sučić assisted in the first 60 seconds of the match in Real Sociedad’s 2-1 win over Espanyol Sunday. He swung a sharp cross that went through the box and landed to teammate Sheraldo Becker after a defender slipped. It is Sučić’s first career La Liga assist.
Matija Frigan scored in Westerlo’s 4-2 win over Standard Liege this weekend. Frigan was voted MOTM with a 8.5 FOTMOB rating. He now has eight goals and three assists in 24 Belgian league matches this season.
Luka Modrić came off the bench in the 80th minute for Real Madrid in a 1-1 draw versus Atletico Madrid Saturday. The result keeps Real Madrid one point in font of Atletico for the La Liga lead. ManagingMadrid gave Modrić a 6/10 grade as he couldn’t do much with “Only 9 minutes on the pitch to try and make a difference.”
Ivan Perišić assisted Saturday in PSV Eindhoven’s 1-1 draw vs. Willem II. With the draw, PSV now sit level on points with Ajax atop the Eredivisie table.
New series about Real Madrid released today on Amazon Prime:
https://youtu.be/3mgWssZJkQc
Looks pretty good…I watched the first and second episode…good watch.
Is Pongračić the next Lovren?
No, its Gvardiol.
P.S. Plymouth manager (replacing Rooney) is Miron Muslic from Bihac
Pretty impressive he knocked out Liverpool
And super eloquent
Anyone know anything about his background ?
I mean if we’re taking Icelanders for handball I guess Bosnians for Nogomet is ok
***.youtube.com/watch?v=SJOqMsOxkgI
Ooh that’s the little town my Dad is from !
Nikola Katic CB MOTM blanking and knocking Liverpool out of the FA Cup
Fun fact: Katic was capped for Croatia vs. Mexico friendly 2017
But typical Dalic ignored him and he changed to Bosnia in May 2024 (now capped 6 times already)
Great job Dalic – esp given none of ur fav CBs are even playing (DCC, Erlic, Pong) – but I’m sure a CB playing on a team bottom of Championship that was able to keep a clean sheet vs. the best team in Europe today isn’t good enough for ur discerning taste, lol
x.com/itvfootball/status/1888640552033206576
Some of the information you post is not accurate… Pongračić is playing for Fiorentina now that he has recovered from whatever injury he had, and they have won both matches
Not really
***.transfermarkt.co.uk/marin-pongracic/leistungsdaten/spieler/282144
Post latest injury – he sat on the bench for 5 matches
Since than he’s played in 4 games (3 wins 1 loss) – one game only lasting 73 minutes
He’s played 722 minutes this season (vs. Gvardiol 2,806 minutes)
Please do research and think before responding – you will be a better poster this way and add more value to the forums
P.S.
Nikola Katic has played 2,344 minutes this season (hopefully you can do the math which tells us that’s almost FOUR TIMES more than Pong)
***.transfermarkt.co.uk/nikola-katic/leistungsdaten/spieler/422051
Quiet weekend for Croats abroad (and quiet around here)…
Zubac continues to impress. At it again tonight going off for 26, 15 boards and 5 helpers.
Dude is playing some good basketball
Orlando City vs. Montreal friendly 6pm ET (not being televised)
Pasalic and Brekalo on the bench for Orlando
Pasalic already nut-megging team-mates in training !
x.com/OrlandoCitySC/status/1887897827100991630
Maybe it’s not the 4x pay raise – maybe the guy wants to live in Florida for the weather – let’s not judge him (I mean it’s not like he joined Montreal)
Nice to see Marin Ljubicic move to Union Berlin and get on board in his first game. They have quite the Croatian contingent with Ljubicic, Juranovic and Prtajin.
I didn’t see the game but wonder if they used him as a winger or not…we sure could use one to develop.
Mali Ante,
He was playing in the middle. Not winger. He scored just a minute or two after coming into the game. They were pressing the Hoffenheim defence and got a turnover….his teammate sent him in home free and Ljubicic beat the goalie with a good finish. He was pumped after the goal and, overall, played well in what was his first game. I had never seen him play before.
Figured as much. That’s too bad…sometimes with these moves the coach might have another position rather than what he typically played ie. Gvardiol.
From what I’ve seen from him, he’s aggressive and relatively quick which are nice attributes for a prototypical winger.
Niko loses coaching first Dortmund game, and at home. The guy who got a red card is a meathead.
Marin on at 59′ today
Goal (within 2 minutes)
x.com/CroatiaFooty/status/1888254825407611363
Assist
x.com/CroatiaFooty/status/1888261437283262663
Not shabby for a Bundesliga debut
Poor Igor looking on at Frankfurt thinking to himself FML
This is why it’s good to have many options.
We now have Ivanovic, Beljo, Ljubicic, Frigan, Kulenovic and Crnac scoring goals for their clubs (with Ivanovic on fire right now).
Matanovic, Matkovic, and Simic (who each looked good at points last season) have not progressed this year, so they get bumped.
If we can get one or two out of this bunch, then it’s great (doesn’t matter who the two are).
I forgot to add Leon Grgic.
3 goals in 5 games (small sample) but still only 19 and plays in a decent league. We’ll see how well his progress goes.
If 2 pan out maybe we’ll end up going full circle and playing with 2 up top a la Suker and Boksic/Vlaovic Euro 1996 – given all of these prospects play/want to play in the middle up front (and don’t look nearly as comfortable on the “wing” e.g. Crnac)
Podcast from last week with Luka Vuskovic
The interviewer is young and a bit “fan-boying” at Luka and Alfie Devine – and not particularly insightful – but Hajduk fans will love to here that Luka wants to end his career back at Hajduk
***.youtube.com/watch?v=IhAmfVs4HW0
@Croat
“Lastly, makes you wonder how younger players feel if they are performing and not getting called up? A bit frustrated?”
There is a slew of young players – in particular diaspora – that are putting their cards on the table they want to play for Croatia – over and above their patriotic predilections – most recently Leon Grgic and Franjo Ivanovic
Why ?
Presumably with the foresight that Dalic won’t stay on past WC 2026 and there will be wholesale changes with entire “old guard” retiring and openings everywhere in the squad (and possibly sooner – rumour last week that Qatar offering Dalic [12-15]m p.y. – apparently he didn’t even think about just said no – while his love for Croatia is unquestioned – he should think about himself and his family and strike while the iron is hot…)
Croatia has the advantage from the diaspora choosing them over the country they were born in because of patriotic pride. From the late 90s to the early 2000s you had the Kovac brothers Simunic Seric Klasnic. More recently you had Rakitic Kovacic Matanovic Luka Sucic soon to be Ivanovic.
It also helps that a lot of these countries do not give birthright citizenship, so a lot of Croats don’t really feel obliged to bother to apply for full citizenship (since they already have Cro passports and Croatia is part of the Eurozone anyway).
Ljubicic with a goal and assist today.
@Eric and @Maminjo re: Rijeka selling players
Miskovic must have heard we’re talking about him
He’s came out a couple days ago and answered all our questions
***.nacional.hr/miskovic-galesic-je-htio-u-dinamo-rijeka-je-obrnula-217-milijuna-eura-otkad-sam-tu/
Costs 1.3m p.m. to run Rijeka – so needs 9m to run through to end of NEXT transfer window i.e. end of August – hence the sales (i.e. 11m total gross (Smolcic was 2m), less Duje Cop 300k, Skoric free, and Jovan Manev ?)
Galesic – Niko had talks w/ Dinamo last summer – if he didn’t sell him now – he could leave for free in the summer
Smolcic – can’t say no when Serie A wants you (I guess but for 2m he ain’t starting in Serie A so why go to sit on the bench – should have sold and stayed till season end – better to Smolcic to have full Serie A pre-season)
Pasalic – 1m salary (vs. 240k “max” at Rijeka ?) – he points out he had a better offer in the summer (Saudi ?) but Pasalic didn’t agree
I guess where I see it different is IF Rijeka won the league AND qualified for CL – he’d be selling the same players for higher $$$ (bc they’d be CL players) – imagine if Pasalic or Fruk or whoever had 8 games in the CL to show themselves – their value (assuming good performance) would [double] if not more – so there is a “multiplier” effect at play (beyond the $$$ u get from being in the CL)
All this to say it’s really embarrassing for Dinamo that they are 3rd (when this is your competition – sell players every window just to keep the lights on – and you can just pick off their best players with high enough bid to weaken them further) – Dinamo should be ahead by like 13 points at this stage in the season (like Celtic are in Scotland)
Could you please learn how to use dashes and take a couple of grammar/writing lessons? Your shit is unreadable.