Andrej Kramarić earned MOTM honors Saturday (8.7 rating from FOTMOB) in Hoffenheim’s 3-2 victory over newly promoted Bundesliga club, Heidenheim. Krama played the full 90 minutes and scored the winner from the penalty spot in the 90th minute to earn Hoffenheim three points; chipping the ball cooly right down the middle of frame. Krama is now five Bundesliga goals away from scoring 100 in his career.
Matija Frigan scored his first goal in the Belgian League this weekend as his Westerlo club fell 3-2 to KV Mechelen. The 20 year-old former Rijeka striker got the start and played 73 minutes in the match. He gave Westerlo a 2-0 lead in the 27th minute, however, his side would blow the game conceding three unanswered goals in the last 20 minutes. Good to see the HNL transfer on the board so quickly in the season.
Josip Juranović assisted twice for Union Berlin in a 4-1 win over Darmstadt Saturday. One came off a free kick and the other off a corner. He was whipping in crosses left and right on the day; playing the full 90 minutes. Union have now taken six points from their first two Bundesliga games of the season.
Dion Drena Beljo came off the bench for Augsburg in the 66th minute with Bayern Munich up 2-0 Sunday. Beljo would score Augsburg’s only goal of the match to prevent a Bayern clean sheet in the 86th. He took a short pass in the box and kept it cool while 1:1 with the Bayern goalie. Like Frigan, could to see the young guns on the board early in the season; win or lose.
Former Croatian international, Ivan Rakitić, had a “Goal of the Year” candidate disallowed on Sunday as Raketa was offside when he received the ball by the corner spot. He 100% went from goal from right near the corner flag to bee the Girona keep upper-V. It’s a shame the goal won’t count but definitely an honorable mention this weekend and worth a look.
Is there a greater “super sub” than Benfica’s Petar Musa? Musa comes in for Benfica in the 90th minute and ends up scoring the eventual game winner four minutes later in a 3-2 victory over Gil Vicente. Gil Vicente scored the last goal of the match in the 98th minute. Musa gets absolutely minimal time for Benfica off the bench but has still managed to score goals this season and last.
Mateo Kovačić and Joško Gvardiol both got the start for Manchester City Sunday in a 2-1 win over Sheffield United. Both Croatian players received a 7-10 grade from 90min.com. Kovačič had “An efficient showing. Kovačić ticked things over and he had a couple of majestic ball-carrying sequences.” Gvardiol had “Very little to do defensively, but Gvardiol’s work with the ball was crisp throughout. Very assured.”
Beckham and Modric spotted in their swim trunks on the Adriatic this past weekend. Modric to Inter Miami? I hope so. Taking a lesser role at Real Madrid doesn’t sit well with me. Real is known to poo on their legendary players during their last seasons. Casillas, Raul etc…I realize Ancelloti wants to push the young legs and manage Luka’s load but Luka is too much of a lion to enjoy consistently sitting on the bench. I would rather see him torch the MLS with Messi.
Musa must be ready to step up for the repka at this point. If he can bring skills like what he showed on that goal, it would be a nightmare for defenders if he were paired with Kramarić. And Musa is playing on a stacked team there at Benfica. Surely, he must be learning a lot from training with those top players.
Good that Frigan scored.
I still think he should have stayed at Rijeka. Rijeka is playing well, and who knows, maybe he would have been the difference against Lille. That would have given him a lot more exposure, plus another season in the HNL to hone his skills.
Westerlo is a bottom feeder so far this season and I worry that this will impact his development. If they are a bad team that can barely create chances or hold possession, then he won’t get many chances to score.
Hopefully it doesn’t impact his development and he has a good year (and gets out of Belgium the first chance he gets).
Glad to see Beljo score, especially against Bayern. He probably deserves the callup more. Not sure why Frigan leapfrogged him.
Hopefully all of Beljo, Musa and Frigan have good years. I think it will be hard for them to push Livaja out, because Livaja has the benefit of inflating his scoring stats in the HNL while the rest of them have to do it in better leagues.
https://www.goalstube.online/2023/08/bayern-augsburg.html?m=m4
DDB’s goal. Quite nice.
Beljo should have been called up.
Agreed. Before Frigan.
Mateo and Josko to Man City, best transfers last 20 years, watching game now, team is loaded and fun to watch
Joško built for EPL
Did you guys see the Rakitic goal that was disallowed by VAR? Very Prosinecki-like circa 1998 vs. Jamaica.
Steta
Nice goal by muric for konyaspor..we need RW
Juranovic first start with 2 assists
Marco Pasalic is one to consider to be a RW option, he’s from Rijeka and has been on fire for them recently.
Musa with a brace and playing virtually no minutes.
Musa is in form, I am hoping he can step up for international. He had a decent amount of goals the previous two seasons.
Let’s see what can happen if he gets playing time in the qualifiers.
I mean it was a lucky deflection with the second goal but who cares at this point it’s a goal. Need to see some of this while he is playing on the Croatian Squad.
He has shown he can play in the bigger games as well, for a player who has vertically no starting time this is pretty big. I don’t think Dalic can ignore this.
Virtually no starting time I mean****