Andrej Kramarić scored Bundesliga goals #10 and #11 of the the season Friday night in a 3-2 loss to Bochum. With his Hoffenheim side down 2-0 in the 2nd half, Krama tried to help Hoffenheim claw back to a respectable result. In the 73′, he would deflect a teammate’s shot directly in front of the net for the goal. Unsure if it would have gone in otherwise. 11 minutes later, he would cooly control the ball from a long, looping pass to ultimately chip the Bochum keeper from 17 yards out with a perfect rainbow lob in the box. Absolutely beautiful! Kramarić is heating up at the right time and has now tallied three goals, two assists in the month of April.
Joško Gvardiol could not have been hotter for Manchester City in the month of April. He scored a total of three goals to go along one assist (Premiership/Champions League); all as a left-back. Sunday night versus Forest, Gvardiol scored the opening goal of the match, heading home a KDB corner kick, in a 2-0 Manchester win. He was given an 8/10 grade from 90min.com as he “Scored the opening goal and made a goal line stop at the other end to prevent Wood from equalising. Very good day at the office, all round.” Mateo Kovačić came on at halftime for City and had a light jog around the park in his 45 minutes. He didn’t have to do too much offensively or defensively; simply controlling the midfield possession when City had the ball.
Luka Modrić got the start Friday night and played 84 minutes in Real Madrid’s 1-0 victory over Real Sociedad. He received a 8/10 grade from Goal.com as he was “As elegant as ever on the ball, and made things happen around the box.” With the cap, Modrić has now tied Brazilian Roberto Carlos with 527 total appearances for Real Madrid.
Mario Pašalić converted a penalty shot in Atalanta’s 2-0 win over Empoli. It is his 5th Serie A goal of the season.
Petar Musa scored his 3rd MLS goal of the season Saturday night in a 2-0 FC Dallas win over Houston. Musa has only played in eight matches thus far so is pacing well for Dallas, who currently sit 12th place in the West.
Lovro Zvonarek keeps getting minutes off the bench for Bayern Munich.
Igor Matanovic scored a nice goal over the weekend – his 14th goal of the season is a matchwinner as Karlsruher won 1-0 at Nurnberg.
https://www.sport1.de/tv-video/video/1-fc-nurnberg-karlsruher-sc-0-1-tor-highlights-2-bundesliga__92302C78-3DA3-4D5B-B833-DE3BA0B6DDEE
(NOTE: Before the video starts playing, a dialog box will appear in German – click the left button to accept cookies, then scrub to 00:55 for the goal)
Watched the match and according to the media reports Dalic was there in person watching as well.
Another brace for Marin ljubicic (this is the same league as Luka sucic and roko simic)
I’d love to see him get a half with the senior team to see if he can make some things happen and how he moves with more talent around him
And an assist for sucic
Both Marin Ljubičić and Roko Šimić are interesting prospects in the sense that they cover a lot of ground on the field.
Download the SofaScore app and check out the hestmap for Marin and Roko… and compare it to other strikers like Petković, Budimir, Livaja, Matanović, etc.
All these other strikers spend the majority of their time in the opposing box, taking around 2.5 to 3 shots per game.
Roko and Marin barely take 1 shot per game and cover the entire field.
I don’t get a chance to watch LASK games, but I’m curious to see if Marin plays similar to Mandžo or Olić (strikers who covered a lot of ground).
Marin has been scoring lately and has a frequency of a goal every 200 minutes… But if he continues to improve on that AND he’s the type of forward to tirelessly cover a lot of ground, I’d like to see him capped one day (as we seem to have a lot of success with these types of strikers).
I think Roko has more of the hustle about him than Ljubicic does although Ljubicic is very active. Roko chases players down a lot more.
I like both kids, I felt very bad when Ljubicic was pushed out of Hajduk, he is a diehard for that club. Maybe it was for the better?!
Yes, I remember Roko’s Champions League MOTM game and he was all over the field. However, they were playing a counter attack strategy so it made sense that he was running this much.
Not sure if that’s how LASK plays or why Ljubicic’s heatmap is pretty even across the field, it’s very evenly spread out (far more than even Roko’s heatmap). I thought it was because he played multiple positions, but he’s been at forward all year.
Either way, LASK is the third best team in the Austrian Bundesliga and Ljubicic starts for them. They will be in Europa next year (with an outside chance to get into Champions League if they can pip RB Salzburg from that second spot).
Much better situation for his development than sitting on the bench behind bums like Kalinic and Livaja.
you’re probably right about Ljubicic, I agree. I do remember when he was at Hajduk I was always impressed with his work rate. the kid was always working hard and he was very tempermental. sometimes that can be good as long as you learn to control it
One of Simic, Ljubicic, Beljo, Crnac, or Matanovic should pan out for us.
They’re all young and getting regular minutes (I believe Beljo is the only one out of the bunch that doesn’t start).
@Niko
Hi there 🙂 After winning the Austrian championship for 10 straight years, it seems like Salzburg might yield the title to Sturm Graz this year. Think it’s a bit of a shame for Sucic, as this season could very well be his last one with Salzburg. Btw— I haven’t come across any sites crediting Sucic with an assist, where did you see it?
It was on a disallowed goal, my bad!
Also sucic is coming off major knee surgery, he had a non existent offseason and the first half of the season he was playing in a limited roll…
He’s been one of their bright spots in the second half of the season, I doubt he feels much shame! Everything considered it was a very productive season (avoiding a lost career to in injury) and he’s back in the national team consideration.
A Marko pjaca type trajectory would have been a disaster for him!
https://www.goalstube.online/2024/04/forest-manchester-city.html?m=1
Great header from Joško.
That’s some top class mandzo header stuff
I guess josko was only playing like a bust for a bit;)
He’s just a baby too
God willing he stays healthy
I hope we can see a Perisic flick header again too
2nd match in a row Majer without a single minute. Wolfsburg have 3 matches left in the season. Can only hope this doesn’t his form too much. Same applies to Sosa, JJ (whom I guess isn’t playing much at Union?) and the injured Budimir. Thankfully, most of the other guys are doing well or playing frequently.
Im impressed every time I watch Kramaric play. He seems to be getting better almost. I only hope we play him in his actual position. His stats would be even better for us if we had a striker post Mario
@dobiti batine
You’re preaching to the choir. No one has been hit harder by inflation than the wealthy. The price of bread has gone up 20 percent since Covid but the price of nyc penthouses has doubled. Sure Car gasoline prices have gone up, but have you seen what’s happened with jet fuel!? Up to $8/gallon and $12/gallon in Paris and a jet burns about 200-400 gallons per hour. As wealth continues to get more and more accumulated at the top, it causes inflation for the top end to actually be the highest cause you have the most money chasing the fewest goods. I even see it in Croatia. I was going to buy some waterfront property by brac last year to develop, but the price had tripled. Given I already have a lot of land on the coast , it didn’t seem appropriate to invest further.
To bring back to soccer, Like I mentioned, this is why i always encourage modric to take the Saudi money. Modric has become incredibly wealthy but despite him being much more unique than some crypto or finance bro, he’s falling significantly behind them in wealth and his family will be displaced from the Dalmatian coast.
I’ve been so busy with business and making sure the yatch i rent has better wifi this summer than last year, that I haven’t Been able to follow as closely as usual.
So how have perisic and orsic been performing lately?
I heard the praise and numbers for orsic in the last post but that was based on a lot is past performance rather than recent events.
On a side note, this is the second year in a row renting a yatch for the summer in the Adriatic. Am i being silly and should I just buy one instead? I still lean toward no. It’s about 250k per week in high season. I think the boat probably retails around 50mm. So 250k x 52 would be almost a 20 percent rental yield! Which is way too much but i probably need to factor in that I’ll never use a boat for much more than 10 weeks and then do i want to deal with having some one rent it. I ran into this issue with my plane where i just stopped chartering it out when i wasn’t using it cause i just didn’t like having strangers on it and wearing it down.
“Yatch” as in beyatch? Jury is out. I’ve heard of “yacht” and can come forward with advice if it’s that. Have never rented a beyatch though have been tempted on some rolling weekends.
@ The Truth 2
People are having enough issues with the price of gas, cost 💲 of living and inflation and you want advice on how to spend money 💰 on a yacht?
No one cares about your 1st World yacht issues.
The wealthy don’t display their wealth by wearing gucci tee shirts or gaudy jewelry they are under stated.
They also don’t boast about their yacht or riverfront properties.
What they absolutely don’t do is go on websites to boast about their supposed wealth …and that’s the TRUTH2…you naysayers!
Any idea how to buy tickets to the friendly match against N. Macedonia in June?
HNS site says tickets generally go on sale 20 – 30 days prior but its pretty vague.
Would hate to travel halfway around the world and not get tickets.
Also anyone have experience going to a pre tournament friendly like this one?
Do they generally sellout? It’s in Rijeka so I’m thinking it might draw a big crowd.
Hvala!
I highly doubt it will be a sellout.
You could probably show up and buy tickets on game day.
But if you want your tickets in advance, I would just pick up the phone and call the HNS and ask. You’d be surprised how effective that is.
Just call them directly at:
+385 (1) 2361 555 or
+385 (1) 201 9184
or email their ticket office at ulaznice@hns.family
Hvala ljepo Maminjo!
2nd Kramaric goal is world-class (1st one also nice volley)
First touch outside of right foot (reminiscent Suker 1st touch France 1998 goal)
2nd touch chip inside of right foot (reminiscent Suker chip Denmark 1996)
Why can’t we play Kramaric as our “#9” ?
And free up two wing spots for Ivanusec/Perisic/Orsic/Pjaca/Marco)
We played Kramaric as our #9 on a number of occasions and it did not work out or as Dalmatinci would say he was “izgubljen kao magarac u magli”.
Remains me of Suker goal against Netherlands I believe.