Mateo Kovačić came off the bench for Man City in the 65th minute of their 1-0 FA Cup Final victory over Chelsea. City have now secured both the FA Cup and League Cup in 2026. Joško Gvardiol was not part of the FA Cup squad and is expected to play Tuesday in Premier League action vs. Bournemouth.
Igor Matanović ends the season with 3G/1A in his final two matches and a total of 11 goals in 31 Bundesliga games. He scored and assisted in Freiburg’s 4-1 victory over RB Leipzig Saturday night. Final match of the year will be versus Aston Villa in the Europa League Final May 20th with a ticket tot the Champions League up for grabs.
Luka Vušković may have played his last match for Hamburg (on loan from Spurs) in a 1-1 draw versus Bayer Leverkusen. He received a 7.3 SofaScore rating for his efforts as Hamburg finish the season in 13th position.
Andrej Kramarić and Hoffenheim will miss out on Champions League football next season after losing 4-0 to Borussia Monchengladbach Saturday in the last match of the season. A win would have saw them jump Stuttgart for 4th place. Kramarić ends the Bundesliga season with 14G/6A in 34 matches this season. He played in every Hoffenheim match.
Matanovic goals summary for the year…
Bundesliga: 11 goals in 31 games (scoring once every 143 min)
Cup: 1 goal in 4 games (scoring once every 261 min)
Europa: 3 goals in 14 games (scoring once every 242 min)
He did pretty good in his league matches, but could have done better in Europa. Cup games were too small a sample.
He was a bit inconsistent overall, but finished out the season strong and will hopefully build on that for next season.
He has some serious potential and is probably in the best position to become our starting striker after this World Cup (and may end up logging some good minutes at this tournament as well).
@Z
Who are the Croatian MORONS who gave Serbia 12 points ?
While the Serbs gave Croatia zero
Embarrassment
12 points in what?
You’re Eurovision song crap
Jebem vam mater šugravu dali srbima 12 bodova oni vama 0 ujutro otkazujem HRT pretplatu.
Koji ste vi jadnici
Oh, haha
Come on.
They were never going to give a Catholic song like that first place, especially after Turkey lodged a complaint.
Israel coming in second shows how compromised that stupid competition is.
Lol
I wonder if we go with two strikers this World Cup
Doubtful for me. Midfield has, and always will be our strength. Thats where our most depth is and it also alleviates extra running for Modric having another body or two there depending on formation.
It would be a nice experiment after the tournament now that we seem to be forming a few legitimate options there, but I don’t think we go that route. And while I expect Kramaric to start, I don’t consider him a real striker.
Olic and Kranjcar vs Germany Euro 2008 meets Igor and Saranic vs England WC 2026 ;-P
Heh, I remember being on this website pre-2016 and everyone was complaining how we hung on to 4-4-2 long after it went out of style.
Hrgovic 3rd round TKO Allen
x.com/Sourceofboxing/status/2055756857189286113
Anonymous thought you weren’t allowed to punch the back of the head and/or the nape? Hrgovic kept hitting him there (I mean Allen was dumb to stuck ducked like that)
Matanovic with 14 goals this season. What a season. Besides him and Budimir, we don’t have any players at the top of the table for most goals for strikers. Mandzo was our last guy in to be at this level. Matanovic needs to use his height and aggression to make space.
We seem to have a healthy lineup. All the games are completed for clubs. We are sitting in a good spot right now. Gvardiol is back, Kovacic and him found some rhythm since returning. Our defence is strong and offensive. Some new young talent upfront with Ivanovic, Musa, Matanovic. Midfield is strong even with an injured Modric. Baturina, Sucic X2, Vlasic. Look at other teams such as Spain. Lots of key players gone. This will be a wild World Cup with lots of twists and turns.
We should beat England in the first game. As long as we don’t lose to the three kitties.
Guehi motm..difficult for gvardiol to play as LCB for city again..khusanov is on form too
Guehi motm..difficult for gvardiol to play as LCB again for man city
Let him play as cb and have less miles on his legs for club
Gvardiol traveled with the team. He looked his usual smiley self walking off the bus. Looked like he was moving just fine.
Hey @ Ante
I know you don’t like Dinamo but it’s a little too much bias and unprofessionalism going on at Croatiansports. Dinamo clinch title few weeks back, they win last derby of season last weekend and mid week win cro cup. No articles on anything, cmon can’t be that much of a hater!
I can accept to a degree ignoring the 2nd best Croatian club at the moment Zrinjski ignoring the great achievement of winning the BIH cup but Dinamo unprofessional!!
Ok I’m here to panic about the comment on gvardi not on bench and vuskovic slapping his knee
We need them both for 2030 to rule the world
Matanović is playing himself as a starter
Sort of wild that we have him and musa possibly as better options then budimir who has consistently scored in La liga in the top 10
I’m liking this
I do like both of them
And if Dalić will shake it up it’s on striker as he never seemed to be a team budimir guy
Sad that Krama took himself off at 55′
If he stayed on and scored a hat-trick Hoffenheim would be in CL
But he just gave up in the most important game of their season
Not a winning mentality – hopefully Dalic took notice
Watched HSV today, Vuskovic kept on having injury issues during the game. At one point he was slapping his knee. He soldier’d through. Hopefully its nothing.
Since Brazil friendly
Wolfsburg have played 630′ of football (7 games)
Lovro has played 86′ of football, sub in 3 games
i.e. only 13.65% of total minutes available, on a relegated side
Easy decision for Dalic to leave him off – he hasn’t progressed in 5 years anyways – just stagnated since his move to Rennes – and will be 30 y/o in January
The craziest thing is he is Wolfsburg top earner by far at 7m p.a. (so don’t feel bad for him missing the WC)
It’s a shame RB Liepzig’s LW Dele Thomas is injured (ankle) otherwise he could have seen him play vs. Igor and Igor could had some nice Croatian words with him
FFS take Igor off – Europa final Wednesday – he doesn’t need to play 90 – it’s 4-1
I hope Freiburg win win Europa.
Matanović with a bunch of incredible assists. Dude is on fire this match.
Absolute call up and start in my view.
Gvardiol not on the bench for Man City today? I hope he was not re-injured during his recent start. Does anyone have an update?
Matanović with a beautiful assist that should have been a goal.
Look at his head movement/swivel from 74:02 – he scans the entire field – where he’s teammates are – where the opponents are – he even looks behind him if he has space/time – then gets the ball and already knows he’s passing it to the guy who is going to be most open – really smart play/processing of progression
Matanovic goal + hockey assist in first 45′
Look at the hockey assist – this is a pass Budimir would never make
Igor seems to be a much better all-around option, including hold-up, link-up, pressing ability, than Budimir
I’m glad someone else sees it too.
Sesvete front 4 vs. Dugopolje
RW Saranic
CF 19 y/o Kardum (called up to U21 – after last playing for U18 in 2023)
LW 16 y/o (!) Vito Jakovljevic (played 4 friendlies U17 – not in Euros U17 squad i.e. with Pavic)
#10 19 y/o Cacic
Cacic, Jakovljevic and Kardum don’t even have an assigned (nominal) “market value” on Sofascore
Now imagine inserting Saranic into Dinamo with Beljo, Hoxha and Stojko instead
Saranic another World-Class penalty
That’s 14 of 14 in his career – never misses – 100% hit rate – just like Anonymous !