Roko Šimić got another Austrian Bundesliga goal under his belt this weekend in a 4-0 RB Salzburg win over Austria Lustenau Saturday. (Can’t find a highlight) Šimić now has three domestic goals in eight appearances to go with his Champions League penalty kick two weeks ago versus Benfica. It’s the perfect start to the season for the 20 year-old striker.
Andrej Kramarić converted yet another penalty this weekend in Hoffenheim’s 3-1 loss to Borussia Dortmund Friday night. It’s only Hoffenheim’s second loss of the season as they remain in contention for a top-4 finish with a 6-0-2 record through the first eight matches in the Bundesliga.
Mateo Kovačić returned from a back injury this weekend for his first Premiership action in nearly a month. In a shock 2-1 loss to Wolves on Saturday, Kova got the start and played 65 minutes in the loss. He received a 5/10 grade from Manchester Evening News as he was “Sloppy in possession for the first goal and couldn’t offer the control that Rodri is so adept at. Better alongside the Spaniard rather than replacing him”. Joško Gvardiol remained on the bench as an unused sub in this match.
Luka Modrić could be growing frustrated in Madrid at his lack of playing time. Modrić was on the bench for Real Madrid in a 3-0 victory over Girona Saturday. Reports out of the Spanish capital are saying that a move from Madrid can happen as soon as this winter with Modrić possibly joining Messi in Miami for a season. Let’s see how Ancelotti lines up the boys on Tuesday vs. Napoli in Champions League. That will be a pretty good indication where Modrić sits in the pecking order already being given the weekend off.
Outside of that, pretty slow weekend for Croatians around Europe with little action to report on.
Modric on the bench again, time to go.
And go where? Everyone knew this was going to happen if he came back. He will still get playing time.
I think it’s a good thing.
He still will stay in game shape, but less mileage.
I would love for him to play this role for us at WC2026 (assuming he’s no longer able to start and play the full 90).
I hate the Miami talk though. Would hate for him to go there.
Far away bush league making it harder to fly over to play NT games, plus higher injury likelihood.
If he goes to Miami it would be after Euros. At that point he is done with national team career and will be on the Pirlo, Lampard, Gerrard type of retirement tour in MLS.
Did people really think he was going to be a starter for Real Madrid this season. Real knows what they are doing. He will make the occasional start and come off the bench in most games. This is how you extend his career and should have started earlier.
I agree with this post, but everyone is built different.
Modric logs a lot of minutes over the past few years, yet seems to be better and has had less injuries.
Either way, I would rather not play with fire and still want him to play less minutes (so long as they are consistent minutes, whether as a starter or off the bench).
He is still good enough to start in 99% of teams, which makes him worthy of a National Team starting spot.
I think he will still be capable of playing in 2026 and contributing positively, so I hope he doesn’t go to Miami because it would be a push in the direction away from the NT callups.
A few comments on Simic here, in Daily Mail article from a couple of days ago:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12581787/amp/Erling-Haaland-Benjamin-Sesko-Roko-Simic-Red-Bull-Salzburg.html
If he can even be in the same ballpark as guys like Haaland or Sesko, then we’ll be very good.
Thanks for the link. It’s a good read.
Maimi Vic, here we come. Time will tell.
Last Dance for Croatia in my opinion alot of rebuild needed and chemistry needs to be made when you look at it our back line will be onlyones with chemistry.
Midfield modric broz are not around after 2024 imo.
And attack perisic and krama are also not here after 2024 imo. Gotta start to rebuild in nations league cycle
Goalkeepers are not problem we have good keeprs
The back line is in good shape all young except Vida but he is on team because he is a good lockeroom guy and cheer leader.
Midfield now we need to rebuild and we have been spoiled by luka for 15 years. Gotta see if sucic can play is baturina real deal. Can moro be a dm can kovacic take the stafeta from luka. Majer Vlasic Pasalic are not and starting 11 material at highest levels superstars. Moro to me is new Badelj maybe im wrong.
The attack wings look weak imo but we can have good core of Cfs if players turn out to be quality
Beljo Šimić Musa wing positions Frigan Vidovic Ivanusec Brekalo
Dion Drena Beljo, Stipe Biuk, Roko Šimić, Marin Ljubičić, Igor Matanović, Gabriel Vidović, Martin Baturina, Lukas Kačavenda, Marko Bulat, Ante Palaversa, Jakov-Anton Vasilj, Hrvoje Smolčić, Marco Pašalić, Luka Vušković, Nikola Čavlina, Luka Stojković, are players that are to be looked at next few years.
Modric, Broz and Perisic will be the toughest to replace. Krama not so much.
I don’t see these guys all leaving in 2024 though. Some may, but not all of them at once.
With Perisic’s injury and timeline for recovery, he’s already gone for us.
But to be honest, we’ve already been slowly losing Perisic over these past couple of years (as he’s lost a step and has disappeared in games here and there) so we’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like without him.
However, I think Ivanusec has been very good for us in 2023 and Orsic was excellent at the World Cup (and could be a great backup for us even in 2026). So the impact is lessened.
Modric and Broz will be hard to replace…but I expect Broz to still be here for the 2026 World Cup. We still have Kovacic and Krama (who is competitive and will likely overstay his welcome). Ivanusec can go central (if needed) and I wouldn’t write off Majer just yet. We also have Sucic, Vidovic and Baturina who are all good prospects too. Not a bad list of players for 2026 if Modric were to leave…but I wouldn’t assume he’s leaving still.
It’s all about lessening that gap between the vets and the new guys, and I think if we lose Perisic and Modric, but still have Broz and Krama stick around for WC2026, it would give the young prospects more time to integrate.
Krama and Musa seem to be playing very well lately.
I wonder if it makes sense to slot Krama behind the striker (like he does at club level), and have Musa play in front of him.
Juranović can take Krama’s spot at RW.
This would put Krama and Jura in their most comfortable positions (Stanišić is always good for us at RB anyway).
Sounds like a good option to consider.
Croatia is in a very risky spot now in this transition. The cliff can come quickly and suddenly as margins in soccer are very thin and a lot of Croatia’s tournament success has been by the thinnest of margins (ot’s, penalty shoot out luck etc).
We have a modric that doesn’t play, bozo-vic in saudi arabia, and kovacic with a hurt back.
Unlike when we had kovacic waiting to sub in for rakitic…the back ups are highly questionable…. vlasic, majer…. neither in great form.. sucic hurt and unproven
I am still not made a believer in Ivanusec, so I see our wings as pretty much in shambles and the main striker problem remains.
This leaves falling back on the defense. Sure Gvardiol is great, but as I’ve highlighted many times his injury proneness will leave us disappointed many times… Sure enough, he missed the Nations Leagues final and my predictions that many scoffed out came true yet again.
Sutalo remains unproven. Sosa’s form has collapsed and defensive capabilities were always suspect. He’s got the same right foot capabilities as Halilovic. Juranovic is interesting moving forward but remains a defensive liability.
Livakovic has stood on his head for Croatia, but let’s be honest…all of us still always suspect the same guy is in there and likely to reappear at some point.
I’ve highlighted how the heart of the 20-30 year old gap is a barren wasteland of failed talents…and eventually this could catch up to Croatia.
The only hope is to lean into the Euro Greece 2004 style even harder. Become even more defensive, smothering of the game etc… Cause the ability to win in any shoot outs is extremely limited and the ability to control possession may start to fade as well. Croatia had finally found an identity these past couple years, its record is incredible and its been fun to watch… But even stronger footballing nations like the Dutch, Italy, Germany etc go through droughts, and there are warning signs Croatia’s could be coming.
Exactly..same thoughts here
Modric in the tunnel during halftime of Girona vs Real…🥺
https://twitter.com/EleModric/status/1708588832243785888
Hopefully things will improve for him soon.
Just announced at HNS press conference that we can have fans at the Turkey match in Osijek with no restrictions. UEFA has fined the HNS with 10K euros.
The bad news is that our 2-year probation continues.
Correction, crowd to be reduced by 1 K. I think the capacity of the new stadium is 12 K ?
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx5RIYLLF8I/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Looks like Petkovic will be out for 3 weeks. This is Musa’s window of opportunity.
Musa striker and kramaric center forward uptop would compliment each other well as long as there are 2 wide players such as wingers or wingbacks. However, we all know dalic is gonna put musa uptop alone and krama as winger
3 clean sheets in a row for Livakovic over at Fener… attaboy!
I am waiting for someone named Marko – in the HNS squad
……. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aRssI0FnQw ……
In addition to The achievements listed in the article above, Roko Šimić also scored a beautiful goal for the U21’s this past September. That’s 5 goals in his past 6 club and international appearances. If he stays hot a little longer, does Dalić call him up in November?
If we finish with 6 points in these October games, we officially clinch FIRST place in the group and I think that Dalic will end up calling up a bunch of new players to try them out (and give many of our veterans a rest).
Šimić will probably get a callup regardless, but I could see him playing significant minutes (along with Musa) if the games mean nothing.
From what I understand, even if we get 6 points and clinch first, we can still play for a spot in pot 1 for the Euro final draw?
Ah yes, that’s true.
11 qualifying groups, with 6 Euro 2024 groups (with Germany occupying one seeded slot) means that the top 5 (out of 11) qualifying group winners will be seeded.
It will be 5 out of these 7 teams that join Germany as a top seed (Portugal, France, England, Croatia, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland).
“If he stays hot a little longer, does Dalić call him up in November?”
Methinks YES! 🙂
If Pukštas is as good as folks say he is on here
Do we know if HNS has had any discussion w/ him re: playing for Croatia one day ?
[5] yrs (or whatever the rule is) in domestic league (a la Eduardo)
Nobody would choose Lithuanian if they want to win (never qualified for a World Cup / Euro – ever) – does Pukštas have strong feelings re: USA (there always seems like a lot of drama / in-fighting and they never actually win anything – can’t see that changing anytime soon) – if he wants to stay in the best leagues in the world (Europe) he will get most exposure w/ UEFA qualifiers, etc – than silly Concaff qualifications (after the top 2-3 other teams – the rest of pretty crap)
Thoughts ?
Pukštas is born and raised in Oklahoma, so I expect him to feel very American. I doubt that he ever plays for Lithuania though. Croatia would probably be his second pick (assuming he becomes eligible).
But I don’t really want outsiders on our National Team (who don’t really want us as their first choice).
The only exception would be if we are on the cusp of being a World Cup winner, and some sort of Haaland caliber talent could put us over.
I wasn’t comfortable with the “Dani Olmo playing for Croatia” talk, despite him speaking so glowingly of Croatia and it being so obvious that he loves Zagreb and Dinamo. Spain was obviously still his first choice, and although being a very good player, he’s not going to put us over.
If Pukštas becomes like Olmo (in that he falls in love with Croatia and gets citizenship)…I would still need him to become some elite level talent (for us to win it all) before I would be fine with him joining us.
I don’t want a bunch of Sammir caliber situations, where we starting filling up our team with guys who may or may not be any better than the next Croat (at the cost of watering your team down with non Croats).
It’s an interesting situation because I think he may be lost in the US National Team shuffle.
The US has a lot of young midfield talent, and a lot of them play on bigger named teams.
Musah, Reyna, McKennie, Tillman, de la Torre, Cremaschi, Tessmann…are all guys in their early 20s and starting to get senior callups.
I don’t think Pukštas gets a callup unless he transfers over to a bigger name club in Western Europe…but by the time that happens, he may already be eligible to play for us. It would be interesting to see if he develops into an elite talent and if the HNS starts approaching him about this.
Pukstas joined Hajduk in November 2020 as a 17-year-old. This means that he needs another 2 years (Nov 2025) at Hajduk or any other club in HNL before he could play for Croatia if he decides to do so?
At the moment his preference is USA, however if he stays another two years playing in Croatia things could change especially if he does not get a call up from the USA senior team.
If he doesn’t get a callup within the next two years, I think he will get Croatian citizenship and try to leverage it to get a callup from the US.
Remember, he’s still a part of their U20 setup, and he will likely be participating in the 2025 FIFA U20 World Cup (which will happen in the Summer of 2025… about three months before he’s eligible for Croatia).
During this time, I could see his management team chatting with US Soccer about whether or not he is in their future plans for a callup.
If he’s on their U20 team, I can’t see why they wouldn’t just call him up to lock him in.
If he’s truly a special player by then, he will easily get called up.
If he’s not, then we probably wouldn’t be interested either.
Any talk about Pukstas needs to stop. We have someone here thinking Lithuania might be an option for him. Come on.
He cant speak croatian and he is American. He has even captained some of the US youth teams in past years.
We needed many years to recover after the Brazil monkeys were added.
How does Dinamo lose this. Hajduk has a bunch of guys in their line up who nobody wanted. Look at the number of player signed as out of contract. Then they also have some canadian kid playing. Sramota!!!
Don’t worry. Dinamo has the ref in their pockets, remember?
HNL’s VAR team will overturn the result tomorrow and award Dinamo with the 3-0 victory.
Dinamo had 69% possession and yet did not create one clear cut chance in front of goal. Hajduk defended well and, in the end, scored from one of their chances. Overall, it was a disappointing match with numerous stoppages and very few opportunities in front of the goal.
Petkovic was subbed in the 41-minute due to injury, not sure what the problem is ? but having missed last week’s match against Rudes it must put some doubt in his availability for the matches against Turkey and Wales. With Livaja in bad form as was the case today, I think that Dalic may start with Musa against Turkey and bring Beljo or Frigan into the squad.
More bad luck- Petković re-injured today. Will he now be ready for the October qualifyers vs Turkey and Wales?
That’s life. We lost Perisic to injury, and Ivanusec may still be recovering from his rolled ankle. Wales lost Ramsay for their October games.
Turkey had a bunch of yellows in their last round of games (I know Demiral is suspended). Not sure if anyone else is.
Musa has been starting for Benfica and playing well. Hopefully he gets his chance now (though a part of me thinks that Livaja starts if Petkovic can’t).
We have the depth now to sustain these things, so we should be more than fine. I expect 6 points (which will clinch first place for us) but even 4 points will likely result in us topping the group.
Benfica is away to Inter (Champions League) and Estoril next week.
Hajduk is away to Rijeka on Sat.
If Musa can stick 1 or 2 into the net next week while Livaja continues to struggle, that should ensure Dalic starts Musa up front against Turkey (should Petko be unavailable).
That is not good news at all, even as a Hajduk fan we cannot afford so many issues up front for the National Squad.
Anyone have a stream for the game?
Dont be cheap. Pay for the service
Juranovic – rotating squad player
Stanisic – backup
Sosa – dropped to bench
Sutalo – play in dutch poor league and conceded many goals every match
Gvardiol – rotatung squad player. Only one chance to play at CB but didnt perform well
Erlic – seems to be doing well
Brozovic – saudi league squad is more expensive than dutch leage!
Modric- no first team football
Ivanusec – injured now
Kovacic- blasted by pep
Pasalic – backup player. Club even offered him to fernabache
Vlasic – no news abt his form
Brekalo – no assist and goals after so many matches
Basic – not registered in lazio squad
Perisic – hope to see him at his best
Majer – no idea
Simic – lets monitor
Beljo – bench player these weeks
Kramaric – scored many pen goals
Petkovic – still playing well in hnk
Musa – never complete a match
Nobody’s buying what you’re selling.
Our guys are proven, regardless of whether they have had one off-game or whether they sat on the bench (during the first month of the season).
What matters most is whether we can add some depth behind Ivanusec at LW (hopefully Orsic can come back early) and if Sosa can get that confidence back and become our full time starter over guys like Barisic (or maybe we start calling up Bradaric for some insurance depth since he’s got a starting gig in Serie A).
The other big issue from our last tournament was the lack of a striker…which has become intriguing right now.
Petkovic is playing great and is our default starter right now, but there are some surprise players breathing down his neck. Musa has been consistently good at club level, and Roko Simic may be further along than we expected (possibly worth a callup if he continues his good play). Beljo is always a threat and has a couple goals himself this season too.
We will also still need to rely on Dalic making the right call to axe Livaja from the team. This is going to take some time, but hopefully, Livaja chokes badly this season in order to speed up this overdue process.
So, really, these next 8 months (until the Euros) is about evaluating that left side, and picking the right option up top (at striker).
Sometimes, I think Dalic and HNS ought to listen to the views of Maminjo and a few other guys here who are incredibly smart posters.
Re Ivanusec, he went from not making the WC2022 roster to all but securing a spot in the first team following Perisic’s injury… that’s a big step forward for him this year. From what I gather, he won’t be unavailable for Feyenoord’s CL match at Atletico on Wed. Let’s hope he’ll quickly regain his momentum after the international break.
My guess is Dalic will start Vlasic at LW against Turkey.
Guardiola has publicly criticised kovacic performance.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12579499/Pep-Guardiola-SLAMS-Man-City-trio-Ruben-Dias-Mateo-Kovacic-Matheus-Nunes-Wolves-Premier-League.html
Modric played the first half in the Madrid derby then saw zero minutes in the following 2 games vs Las Palmas and Girona.
Meh… I don’t like where this is going. Apart from the Madrid derby, it’s not as if Modric has been playing badly.
Who knows, maybe he’ll leave in the winter?
And it’s not like anyone on the team in the derby was great. Alaba was simply horrible, for starters. Luka was great few days prior in the Champions League match.
Time for Modric to move in January. He needs to be playing a lot more than he is at Real to maintain form and fitness at 38 years of age. MLS might be the best option or return to Dinamo.
Wonder if it ticked off Carlo that he made those comments to Croatian paper about playing time.
kovacic is useless. Embarassingly bad!
So I’m not the only person that thinks that of Kova?
he exels at 5 yard lateral and back passes.
Exactly as I see it. I just don’t know how so many so called experts don’t.
Stanisic is really unlucky..bayern seem to have dropped mazraoui for past few games…and convert midfield to RB..and he is not performing that well either.
He could have played for bayern but went to leverkusen on bench instead as leverkusen is on winning streak..with hincapie on bench providing more competition having recovered from injury
Crappy for stanisic
I keep saying it. He is due to break out
Can he potentially go back to Bayern in the winter??
Simic with another goal. No idea what it looked like but great news
Majer looks like he got a mostly full game in. Don’t know how he did
Yeah, I had been thinking the same thing, that Stanisic should return to Bayern in the winter. On the face of it, seems a simple situation to me, Bayern needs a proper rightback while Leverkusen has no real need of Stanisic. Hope there is a provision somewhere in the paperwork for the clubs to end the loan arrangement, maybe Bayern just has to pay a small penalty in the event.
I’m not worried about Stanišić.
He seems like a very disciplined player who doesn’t fall out of form even he’s not playing first team football.
Someone like Majer, however, is the type of guy that needs to play very regularly. He doesn’t strike me as a fitness buff, and would probably get fat and out of form really quickly when not playing.
Indeed, during his 2nd season at Rennes when Majer wasn’t playing regularly, he turned a little pudgy.
………………Musa…………Petkovic…………
……………………….Krama………………………
…………………………………………………………
……………..Kova…………….Modric………….
Sosa……………………………………………..JJ
……….Gvardiol…….Erlic…….Sutalo……….
…………………………………………………………
………………………….Liva……………………….
It’s Vjecni derbi this weekend! Hope Baturina (and Vidovic) will shine…