Luka Modrić received a 7.2 rating (FOTMOB) for his 74 minutes Saturday in the Club World Cup Final. Real Madrid defeated Al Hilal 5-3 to win their 5th Club World Cup title. Modrić “Looked fresh as opposed to previous games post-World Cup. Skipped past defenders with a burst of speed and was constantly on the lookout for the ball in central pockets.”
The tournament began in 2000 and Real Madrid are the current leaders with their fifth title. Barcelona trail with three titles.With the 2022 Club World Cup title to his name, Modrić now has 22 titles with the club, which is tied for 4th all time.
Antonio Čolak scored his first goal of 2023 and Borna Barišić assisted in Ranger’s 3-2 victory over Patrick Thistle in the Scottish Cup Round of 16 Sunday in an absolutely bizarre match. In a show of sportsmanship during the 2nd half, Thistle was going to give the ball back to Rangers to restart the match. However, a Patrick Thistle player misplayed the ball, Rangers’ Malik Tillman quickly grabbed it and scored after a breakaway on goal to make it 2-1. Rangers would agree to let Thistle walk the ball into the net following kick off. Absolutely bizarre. Rangers will now play in the Scottish Cup quarterfinals.
Borna Sosa assisted in Stuttgart’s 2-1 loss to Freiburg on Saturday. He laid off the ball to teammate Chris Fuhrich for an absolute beautiful 28-yard missile from downtown. It will be one of the top goals in the Bundesliga this season. With the loss, Stuttgart sit three points deep in the Bundesliga relegation zone.
Gvardiol vs. Juranović: Both Croatians played the full 90 minutes for their respective clubs Saturday as Union Berlin squeaked out a 2-1 victory over RB Leipzig. This was an exciting game with two wunder-goals as well as a penalty kick from Berlin. It appeared that RB Leipzig’s goal to equalize in the 78th minute was good but it was negated by VAR. The result keeps Union Berlin one point behind leaders Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig one point behind a Champions League berth.
With EURO 2024 qualifying just over a month away, is anyone else concerned that guys like Brozovic, Majer, Kovacic , and Orsic are barely getting any minutes. It’s scary that Modric and Perisic are playing way more than those mentioned. Kramaric has been playing, but both he and Hoffenheim have been struggling. Our defense all seem to be playing well, but I still don’t see where the goal scoring will come from. Can’t afford to start another qualifying campaign flat with both Wales and Turkey first up.
Not at all @Susak. Why? Because they went deep in the World Cup. Brozović our most important player will be fine. Orsic is a one hit wonder.
Majer is like gold. Krama is gonna Krama.
Modric and Perišić will be fine.
That being said, the end is nigh unfortunately for those two warriors.
But, we got a slick bank account to thwart these two impending retirements.
No problems…kova and broz are just coming back from injuries. They should be back to match fitness in a few weeks. Modrić is still Modrić. Perišić is still a great asset wherever he plays …although he can’t seem to find the back of the net lately. I hope he can get his scoring touch back soon.
Nah.
This first team football thing is more of an issue for players who rely on their fitness to perform well.
Countries like Germany, England, Denmark, etc are the ones whose players really need constant first team football action to remain fit because they all suck when it comes to technical ability and they need to outpace you to win their games.
Brozovic could play even if he spent a month on the bench, smoking a pack a day and eating nothing but cheese and prsut.
Same goes for most of our players, both in current times and in the past.
We’ve always had guys perform well for our national team despite not being able to play regular first team football.
It’s never been a problem for us. I can’t even think of one player who performed well for us, then dropped off in form simply because they lost their starting spot at club level (outside of actually getting old and closer to retirement of course).
No need to worry. The team is still good and still deep! I agree with the comments about technical skill. Wales is technically quite poor, though they play tough. Our defense is still world class, and there are still players who will play well together around the pitch. Livaja, for example, is still in form! A new addition of Colak, Musa, Beljo, or whomever will add fresh energy. Hoffenheim is not a good team! It doesn’t mean that Kramaric is suddenly second-rate: he’s consistently the highest-rated player on a team that doesn’t have any other really good players, but he obviously is part of that club’s history and is doing his thing there. Vlasic is a starter at Torino. Modric is still world class. We also have Sucic and Jakic, who are both on the rise.
Barišić actually got cautioned after the melee when all he did was try to keep the players apart.
In the round of 16 UEFA Youth CL Hajduk just drew Manchester City.
One match only, to be played in Split.
Pity that Vuskovic will not play as he was sent off against Sahktar.
Pukštas looked good for Hajduk scoring twice. Yes, it was against 10 man Varazdin, but showed technical ability.
An American born Lithianian who plays for the US Under 20 Team.
Southampton has fired Nathan Jones. This is good news.
Jurić is a contender to replace him
Yes Juric is an interesting prospect to be a manager for Southampton.
I personally think that he would succeed in that environment.
Very intriguing to say the least. I would love to see it.
Nathan Jones may want to destroy croatia players career..as wales is facing croatia in euro qualifer.
After BS VAR Call in the Semi final
with Modric failed to score penalty ~
then won this bulshit trophy
. .|_ with the help of FIFA _|. .
is it something to be proud of? _
Winning a trophy is always something to be proud of.
Just my thoughts.
Just another rumour in the rumour mill.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/sempreinter.com/2023/02/11/italian-media-suggest-that-inter-milan-target-luka-modric-could-leave-real-madrid-as-a-free-agent-this-summer/amp/
Modric possibly to Inter if he is given an ultimatum.
Davor Lukšić does live in Croatia, but their billions came from refining natural resources in Chile. Then they used some of it to invest heavily in Croatia’s tourism sector, which he manages.
In terms of rich folks in Croatia (who actually made money in Croatia itself) you have the founders of Rimac Automobili (Mate Rimac) and the founders of Infobip (Silvio and Roberto Kutić).
These are unicorn companies (private firm that hit a $1 billion valuation) which is incredibly impressive. They’re called unicorns because of the statistical rarity of this happening and Croatia has had two of these in recent years.
To put things into perspective, most of Europe doesn’t have any unicorn companies. Italy doesn’t have any and many of the top European nations for innovation like Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, etc… generally have between 2-6 unicorn companies.
Most of Europe’s 130 unicorn companies in 2022 were overwhelmingly in Germany, England, and France where there are huge populations and lots of money. Then these handfuls of high innovative Western Euro nations with lots of money dedicated to this type of growth, made up the rest of the list. I think Croatia was tied with Spain and Ireland for 8th place on the list, which is hilarious considering we have a tiny market, old population and no money. We’re pretty much doing the same in the business World as we are in the footballing World (per capita).
Rimac actually had potential to become a decacorn (which is clearing $10 billion as a private firm) which is absolutely insane, but they did that IPO and partnered with groups like Bugatti and Porsche.
But Mate Rimac himself may actually be a billionaire though. He owns like 45% of the company, and the last valuation was something like 2 billion (and that was a couple of years ago). Plus, who knows what other investments he has.
Aha! Very interesting Maminjo. Didn’t realize how rare these unicorn companies were.
Hopefully Croatia can reduce the amount of corruption and continue to prove that opportunity exists at home, keeping more talented Hrvats from leaving for Germany, GB, etc. Shudder to think what Croatia will look like in several generations if the population decline continues.
The English are all about hustle and not about skill. People claim their league is exciting, I find it brutish. They just can’t get enough of give and gos for example. Croats are a bad mix with that culture.
Agreed. It’s like hockey out there, and definitely not my favourite league.
I often make the hockey analogy too, but I’ll admit that the EPL isn’t quite that simple or boring. Just not as awesome as some of the other leagues.
Croatia has never had too much deviation between its poorest people and its richest.
No billionaires, but also no favelas and ghettos.
Probably why the country is regarded as one of the safest in the World to live in.
https://www.goalstube.online/2023/02/freiburg-stuttgart.html?m=m2
Sosa with a nice interception leading to a simple assist.
Orsic and Caleta-Car are still not even on the team sheet vs Wolves. I don’t know what it is about english football and Croatia, it does not mix.
Caleta-Car has good passing and dribbling ability and good size…but he was always a bit too slow for English Premiership football. He should have always been trying to move to the Bundesliga or Serie A, but he strikes me as a guy that would go for the money over his own development.
He was a good prospect when he was sold to Marseilles at age 22, but never got any better over the past few years. He’s about the same as he was when he was sold to Marseilles, but we’ve got all these new guys who improved and surpassed him.
Duje is a depth player now, but I think if he makes the Euros next year it may be his last tournament for us. Almost all our current CBs are younger (Gvardiol, Erlic, Stanisic, Sutalo) plus there are a couple more coming up in Dinamo’s 2nd team that are supposed to be good.
Yep, Caleta has the brains to be a good footballer but lacks the athleticism.
Much like Tin Jedvaj who now plies his trade for Al Ain of all places.
I don’t know how stupid these English clubs can be. Orsic is likely the best player on that team. They take out Caleta-Car and conceded three goals; you’d figure they’d put him back in. West Ham bought Vlasic last season and then they play him out of position! Why are you spending 30 million Euros on him if you don’t even know what position he plays?
EPL teams are owned by oil-rich Arabs and other Billionaires with stupid money.
They run these teams like spoiled children with a blank check from their fathers.
Every transfer window is a pissing contest of what new name they can buy, regardless of team fit.
Even a bottom team like Southampton is owned by a Serbian billlionaire, and they too have to take part in the pissing contest (they just won’t be getting the biggest names out there). But there’s no real plan or strategy. Just buy as much talent as possible and see what shit sticks.
What serb Yugo billionaire ..possibly stolen money from cros..that’s why Yugoslavia existed. ..commy style theft from cro wealth.