Marcelo Brozović seems to be the only guy that can score for Inter Milan lately. The Croatian CDM scored a cheeky ‘ninja kick flick’ in the 89th minute Saturday to beat Torino 1-0 and grab all three points for his club. SempreMilan were a bit harsh with their 6/10 rating for Brozović as he “Didn’t have the best of games but has begun pushing forward again into the penalty area and so he’s scored for the second consecutive game. Misplaced many simple passes but worked himself back into the game.” Brozović is in top form for Inter with two goals in two straight matches.
Nikola Vlašić had a solid game for Torino with a 6.7 rating from FOTMOB. He didn’t get on the scoresheet this weekend but did muscle some solid shots at the Inter goal in the 1-0 loss for Torino.
With Jan Oblak out with injury, Ivo Grbić got a rare start for Atletico Madrid in a 4-1 victory over Celta Vigo. He was given a 6.8 rating (FOTMOB) for making three saves but giving up a short-side goal he should have saved. Manager Diego Simeone said this of Grbić after the match, “We understood that he was not in his best shape. Great opportunity, very well taken advantage of by Grbić, who is well integrated into the group and works with great enthusiasm. When you work, you get paid.”
Andrej Kramarić missed a penalty shot but scored later in the match as Hoffenheim beat Mainz 4-1 on Saturday. Krama received a 7.7 rating (FOTMOB) for his goal performance but he will know at the end of the day he should have had a brace. With the win, Hoffenheim are in the thick of the Bundesliga title race; trailing leaders Union Berlin by only two points.
All matches in the United Kingdom have been postponed this weekend due to the Queen’s passing
https://youtu.be/NCtB5i8OPw8
Very happy to see that there is still some real Croats around!
It’s interesting to see Croatia basketball never really be able to make an impact. This was probably the most prime team from a talent standpoint that they’ve had.
Still top notch bogdanovic, a prime zubac who is a legit presence, hezonja who’s had a good season in europe, and saric…
3 of those are considered top 100 nba players potentially and hezonja is still an nba talent… granted saric still hasn’t full regained his form
unfortunately something just unenjoyable about watching them and how they play. i feel bad for guys like bogdanovic, zubac and saric who genuinely care about the national team. hezonja just a weird guy.
croatia still seriously lacks any true guard presence and ability to penetrate to the basket which is probably part of the reason their play seems so ugly
it’s sad to see what looked like a potentially golden generation really kind of fall apart
to re-cap
saric: lottery pick that averaged 20 points in the playoffs as a sophomore, coming off torn acl, now a bench player , and bouncing around teams
hezonja: 5th pick in the draft and now out of the league
bender: 4 th pick in the draft , now out of the league, coming off acl surgery, and can’t even make the national team
zizic: first round pick, out of league, can’t make national team
zubac: first round pick. success
luka samanic: first round pick by development pros san antonio and now out of the league
roko prkcanin : europe juniors mpv leading croatia to championship and was supposed to be a lottery pick…delayed entry into draft by 2 years and questionable if he is a second round pick
From here, croatia has very little known talent coming down the pipeline. For years they had these guys dominating the youth ranks and leading croatia far into youth tourneys. Now there is nothing.
Remember though… in basketball you only really need one …as shown by doncic… but the odds of croatia producing anything close to that kind of talent are low
You’re very right about basketball only needing one. It’s a very star-driven sport.
Granted, there are teams that always do well and have no-name players on their squads.
A team like Greece (before they had Giannis) was one that always seemed to do well, despite not having elite individual players…but this is largely due to having a good league and system.
Italy and Russia also regularly did better than they should have, probably because of this as well.
Our league has fallen off a cliff, and legendary teams (like KK Split) can’t even find any takers when they are put up for sale.
This has hurt us, and this is why we won’t ever be like Italy or Greece, where we can win with depth and no stars.
We’ll need a Doncic-type to come out of nowhere for us.
But I wouldn’t rule out some freak Dalmatinac being born, becoming a natural star, and just bailing us out. Nobody would have guessed an elite level talent like Doncic would have come from Slovenia. They were not at our level in terms or producing NBA caliber talent, and now they will have the best ever. Serbs, for example, were also not at our level when it came to producing tennis stars, then Djokovic came out of nowhere too.
Slovenia and Serbia are no pushovers in those sports, but all the countries in the former Yugo region has so much natural ability and talent, it’s quite possible that our basketball program could be bailed out by some freak Dalmatinac LeBron clone…The same way as our historically atrocious backline in football, just got bailed out by that freak of a man-child in Gvardiol who seemingly came out of his mom’s womb with a beard (and now we suddenly have the best defensive prospect in the world).
It just sucks that we don’t invest in basketball anymore because we’re obviously the best basketball players in the world when you take into consideration the population size, dollars invested, and the amount of NBA caliber players that came out.
lol gvardiol coming out like a brown dude with a beard
Fuck basketball legend
I’ll take a legend soccer keeper being born for us if I could choose!
Nice to see Tudor off to a good start considering it was a rocky one with the Marseille players.
He isn’t afraid to make unpopular decisions (like benching Payet or subbing out yellow carded players early) even if they are the right decisions.
It’s still early, but he did incredibly well last season with Verona finishing 9th in Serie A (which was well above expectations) and playing an attractive offensive style.
He’s a seemingly emotional and confrontational guy (from his previous incidents with other teams) but he may be learning to control that.
If Marseille can finish second and possibly challenge PSG for the title, then Tudor becomes a very intriguing future coach for the National Team.
Great to see some of our former players opting to go the coaching route and gather club coaching experience first.
We can’t afford to make the mistake of hiring these very green former players with no experience.
Juric, Tudor, and Prosinecki did the right thing to gather club experience first. We now have data on them to make a decision. Juric and Tudor are looking pretty good. Even Terzic can become an option after a few more years of experience and success.
Guys like Corluka, Olic, Mandzo, Simunic, etc need to be kept far far away from the National Team.
Nothing is stopping them from taking the reigns of a HNL club, but they’re trying to weasel their way into the shortlist for a future senior National Team coaching position without putting in any of the work or exposing their (lack of) coaching skills.
Sucic called up for u21s
I didn’t even notice if he was called for the men’s
I guess not as assuming schedules conflict
Really am hoping to see more from him on the senior squad soon
There’s a note at the bottom of the call up list, which says Dalic and Biscan will decide together where Sucic will play.
Hmmm. Marin Ljubicic was not called up.
Biscan called up Roko Simic and Igor Matanovic instead.
Roko is on the bench and not playing for RB Salzburg right now.
Matanovic is playing off the bench for St Pauli in division 2 Bundesliga (but hasn’t scored any goals yet).
This could bite him in the ass. Ljubicic is scoring, and has also provided assists when not scoring.
Might be better off if we miss out with these U21s. Biscan already kinda choked a bit in this group phase, and I don’t want him as our next senior NT coach without gathering more coaching experience (with grown adults first).
He’s probably one of the top picks to replace Dalic in two years, despite not really having a long coaching career.
Only people that should be considered to replace Dalic is Juric, Tudor and Bilic. I don’t think anyone else are at that level currently.
The jury is still out on Tudor…but he’d probably decline because he’s at that point where his club career can really take off.
Same goes for Juric. He’s been making excellent progress with Torino, and he looks like a genius stealing Vlasic for what’s going to be a 15 million euro option-to-buy at the end of that loan. He’ll want to build on this and bring Torino into European competitions.
Bilic is questionable because he’s been out of the game for a while and had some poor results in recent seasons. His spell at WBA was decent, but his last two years at West Ham weren’t great and he only hurt his rep by going to Saudi Arabia and China (where he didn’t succeed either).
Vladimir Petkovic would be an interesting option as he is currently unemployed, but I wonder how he’d fit with our National Team and the HNS.
He also choked hard in the French league last season, so maybe he’s doing his best Mourinho impression and losing his magic with older age. He was great for the Swiss though.
Fair enough on Tudor because this is the first time he is at a top club in one of the 4 biggest leagues in europe.
But what I like about both Tudor and Juric was between last season and so far this season, what they’ve been able to do with what they’ve got (Both got mid-table with ok squads). Those were their first years at those clubs as well don’t forget.
Bilic’s WBA spell came to an end because owners were tight in giving him money to invest in the squad even though when you get promoted, the club gets something around 150m and he was only allocated a small proportion of that money.
Completely forgot about Petkovic, what caused he’s downfall in Bordeaux, what was it financial issues?
He got them relegated.
Not sure whether Bordeaux bought the players he needed to perform though.
According to Reddit users, it seemed like coaching Bordeaux was career suicide, since the team was bought by some US investors who don’t know what they’re doing.
He’s also apparently the type of coach that takes time to implement his methods, which is a longer process.
It was a bad career move for him I guess, but they paid him a lot of money so I guess he took the risk. Now he’s in court trying to get the remaining 10 million Euro they owe him (which they’re not paying).
His coaching methods require time. He’s very good at picking players and build a team, which is a long process. He’s just not suitable for interests-oriented clubs, in hindsight.
I was surprised to see him do poorly, considering he seemed to overachieve with Switzerland (who don’t have good players, but did well under him). Maybe those Reddit users were right in saying that it was more of a Bordeaux thing than a Petkovic thing. Then again, some coaches do a lot better as NT coaches than club coaches too.
Vlasic played brilliantly – nice to see him playing with such confidence
Indeed, he had a really impressive showing. He could have easily scored or assisted, but he was unfortunate in that regard. He think he can only get better — as long as he continues to work hard and fight to show he belongs in the Serie A.
https://youtu.be/v0s_xAvnd54
Just in case you need to see how an NBA player dominates for their country at Euro Basket.
No Finland is producing ballers?!
Sramoti
Big news down under
Sydney United have made an historic appearance in the Australia Cup final
To be held on 1 October
Massive day
Apparently Brozovic and Sucic are still linked with a possible move to Liverpool.
There are a couple of articles online. Couldn’t copy them for some reason.
Is the trade deadline already finished??
Isn’t transfer period over?
If inter loses broz they are in huge trouble if u ask me
Agreed @Dannyj. He’s an outstanding player. Most underrated in my opinion. Broz provides cover for the modric and the kovacic’s of the world yet provides cover for our porous defense.
We lose his ass to injury or something, we are cooked.
Grbic starting, played well early, gave up a howler late… game still going
Ivo Grbic
Called into action a minute into his first-ever LaLiga start and he responded well, denying Strand Larsen from close range. He saved another from Hugo Mallo shortly after. Couldn’t save from Gabri Veiga’s low strike at his near post and could have done better. Not entirely convincing, but not a bad first start — 6.
I was surprised by how shaky his punching ability in the air was… he could have been nervous, but our goalkeepers look so inept when they come out from between the goalposts compared to the average goalkeepers across the top divisions..
My guess is simione was not convinced today, especially considering the style of football athletico play
Actually, Simeone praised him in the postgame interview, saying that his saves early on were what allowed Atlético to take risks and win the match. I guess the howler was when they were already up 3-0.
Vlašić unlucky not to bag a couple today
He Looked pretty good
If vlasic gets hot. He may be a joker who can bag some for us at World Cup
So either premier league is too good for him or just hasn’t had the right fit
But is looking dangerous in Italy
It will be a huge piece to have him on his game
We need to see Gvardiol and stanisic at the back
They are the future
We ain’t winning this thing with our current keepers let’s be real
Let’s at least build up the next generation
Kramaric goal
Brekalo assist
Stanisic subbed in at 61st minute.
Not too shabby za hrvate.
Bog i Hrvati
And Brozovic with a nice game winner.
Kramaric also missed a PK, according to flashscore.com.
Get ready for Vida and Lovren
Pavard finally rested today. Mazraoui to replace him in starting RB..but stanisic got to wait for both of them to rest..lol…alphonso davis will play in every game.
If he does not play, hernandez will cover..
Stanisic in worst state than last reason when he has only pavard to compete with.
Our NT RB position is v thin now..rely only on juranovic. Vrsaijko has retired.
Shame with Stanisic situation. Once Bayern brought in Mazraoui, it was pretty clear that he won’t be playing much this season.
Gvardiol’s situation is a bit surprising though. He was competing with Halstenberg for a starting spot then the club brough in Diallo on transfer deadline day. Rose’s arrival probably won’t help, as he usually deploys a back 4 defense. For the 2nd game in a row, Gvardiol is on the bench.
Stanisic has brought this situation on himself, had the chance to go on a loan and simply refused it.
On the other hand, I am very surprised about Gvardiol considering he is one of if not, the best U21 defender as of now.
https://www.football-espana.net/2022/09/10/luka-modric-reveals-boring-secret-to-superhuman-fitness-at-37-years-of-age
I remember hoping Luka would be able to be some sort of presence for us at Qatar at age 37, after leading us to the finals at age 32, which I thought was his peak?
4+ years later, he is still at his peak and then some.
He is our best player and captain.
His leadership has bridged two generations and allowed us to pass the lean generation that was effected by our war of independence in the early 90’s.
Now we have a bunch of talented nogometaši in their early 20’s for the first time in decades.
Qatar will once again inspire another wave of young boys to aspire to be World class nogometaši.
In many ways Modrić is what Dražen Petrović could have been for HKS.
When I see our mediocre košarku team with some good players but struggle with no super star, I am reminded what Modrić has down for HNS.
Sretan rođendan Luka!!
Hey @Maminjo, thanks for your comment
https://croatiansports.com/champions-league-week-1-top-three-moments/#comments/486451
Yeah I’m sure Leipzig management wouldn’t want to see Gvardiol’s market value decline. Leipzig is playing Dortmund in a few hours time… let’s see how Rose lines up his team.