Borna Sosa scored a beautiful free kick Saturday in Stuttgart’s 3-0 win over Koln. He kissed the bottom of the right crossbar with his left foot from 20 yards out in his return from injury. It’s great for Sosa to do something offensively after a subpar World Cup. With the win, Stuttgart climb two points out of the relegation zone in the Bundesliga.
Luka Modrić played the full 90 minutes for Real Madrid on Saturday in a 2-0 win over Osasuna. He received a 6.5 from ManagingMadrid as he “Played the full 90 minutes and roamed all across the pitch. Provided the pre-assist to Vinicius on the Fede Valverde goal. Had a team high of 4 interceptions in midfield.” Real Madrid still remain 8 points back of leaders Barcelona for the La Liga title; who have only conceded seven goals in 22 league matches this season.
Mateo Kovačić returned from a calf injury and played 90 minutes for Chelsea in a 1-0 loss to Southampton. Chelsea remains to sink faster than ever.
Ivan Perišić came off the bench in the 78th for Spurs on Sunday in a 2-0 win over West Ham. With the victory and a Newcastle loss, Tottenham now crack the top-4 in England with 14 matches remaining in the season.
Joško Gvardiol received an impressive 8.2 rating (FOTMOB) on Saturday as he played the full 90 minutes in RB Leipzig’s 3-0 clean sheet win over Wolfsburg. Gvardiol has been a beast since returning to Bundesliga action from the World Cup. RB Leipzig currently sit one point behind Freiburg for a CL berth.
JJ takes many free kicks and corners for Berlin.
Nice to see our boys play integral parts for their respective clubs.
Sosa is silky smooth, I am glad he is back in effect.
Project goal scorers needs to begin at HNS.
We are dominating the first 2/3 of the pitch.
We need wingers, forwards and explosive CAM’s.
Position #s 7, 9, 10, 11
Attributes:
Explosive speed
Power
Dynamic dribbling
Hungry to play make
SCORE goals
Ya…is seems like Juranovic has already become one of Berlin’s most important players. Great move for him.
…and Berlin is having their best ever season!
This is a team that pretty much played in the 2nd and 3rd division its entire existence.
Never played in Champions League or Europa, and actually has a chance to win the Bundesliga and qualify for Champions League this year.
Sosa, Gvardiol, and Jakic all in Bundesliga team of the week. So we got Fortress Hrvatska Defense, Midfield Magic Croatia,…. and Forward…um *scratching my head* don’t really have much to say about that….
Yea, Dion Beljo didn’t start this week (after starting his first 5 games).
He did come off the bench, but hopefully this doesn’t mean he won’t be playing as much moving forward.
Of all our strikers that we have coming up, he’s one of our youngest and is already playing in a top-4 league. It would have been nice to see him fast track his development.
Roko Simic and Marin Ljubicic have cooled off significantly since their hot starts.
Musa is probably best suited to be called up, since he plays on the best team out of all of them (Benfica) which is also one of the best teams in Europe right now (and he has a nice joker role with them).
He is at least capable of playing that role with us. I would even start him considering none of our veteran forwards are having particularly good seasons right now (with Krama and Colak losing their starting spots recently).
Dalic needs to call Musa up. No excuses this time.
Agreed, he needs to call up the youngsters such as Beljo and Musa…well speaking of Musa he scored today–he musta read our posts!
https://streamja.com/JVQbb
Majer with a nice assist. He hasn’t been playing a lot lately. Hopefully he gets back on track.
How many games did Budamir start at the WC? He even got subbed out of one game where he came in as a sub. He was at his prime 2-4 yes ago, but Dalic did not use him.
It’s always the same story whenever there can be new faces in the team, they are in top form but Dalic delays the callups which is confusing.
Budimir played pretty well against Madrid. It’s hard to imagine any of Croatia’s other striker options doing much better, except for Kramarić, who is more of a midfielder anyway. Watching this match made me think that Dalić had reasons for calling up Budimir over Čolak and Musa for the world cup. Still not a world class striker, but definitely not garbage.
We needed a striker for the world cup, everyone knew we needed one and that there were options out there but Dalic called up Budimir probably because he is in a top 5 league even though he did fuck all before the tournament.
Before the WC, Colak had 14 goals in all competitions halfway through the season and Budimir had 1 and even Musa was making a better impact than what Budimir was. There is no way that callup for the WC was justifiable.
Colak: like Livaja, Petko, Budimir are all in their later 20s, some are closer to their 30’s even. Not every prospect develops later in life, some do and some do not.
Something has to be said for this as well. All the other strikers and individuals we have been talking about are all, at the most, in their early 20’s. Some are even younger than that.
I know Colak has had a decent run with the Rangers, but I am starting to think it wouldn’t have made too much of a difference for our World Cup run.
Don’t get me wrong I was on his bandwagon earlier but I am starting to think a bit differently. I think Dalic did the best with what he had, he didn’t have a clear prospect in his mind, that was achieving these results in a top tier league as a forward/striker.
So to sum it up, we have to look to the youth at this stage I think. When Dalic had said, at the turn of the World Cup, that the ticky tack style of play was slowly dwindling as a philosophy in soccer currently , I think that was an admission by him that he has to rethink his current strategy and tactics. I think that the youth may provide something different, and maybe Dalic is starting to see this.
Dalic even suggested that plenty of teams are having success playing a different style game, especially in this past World Cup. The game for example that Argentina played against us more linear and wide…more on the attack.
So in being one of Dalic’s harsh critics myself, in this world cup I think he has made a fan out of me personally despite the flack I will get for saying so. As I think Maminjo or Dannj had said I think, Dalic achieved what he achieved without a strong forward striker.
It will be interesting to see how he acts on these words come Match for the Euro Qualifiers. That will be the time I think he has to show what this change in philosophy means for him.
I agree with Mate1’s comment. Dalić called Čolak up a few Times. He saw him in training and gave him game time. He knows all of these players well up close. He must have seen weaknesses in Čolak’s game that were more important than his key strength, which is finishing. The guys he brought took home a medal, and there have to be reasons for that beyond just luck. Playing as a starting striker in La Liga is in itself a qualification, for example. If you aren’t good, you just don’t get time on the field.
Oršić not on the team sheet today!?
This is turning out to be a terrible move for him.
Good to see Kovačić is back for Chelsea, but they are so disjointed and poorly managed. I really hope he gets out of there soon 🙏
Orsic move has to be one of the worst moves ever for a Croat.
I told everyone
Orsic is not for epl
Maybe Bundesliga or just stay home u Zagrebu. That’s pretty much orsic and caleta’s options.
Oh yeah, the Sosa free kick was superb.
Sosa with a nice one today
https://www.goalstube.online/2023/02/stuttgart-cologne.html?m=m2
What a beauty!