Josko Gvardiol

[mdenci]

Full name: Josko Gvardiol
Current club: Dinamo Zagreb (RB Leipzig from 1 July 2021)
Date of birth: 23 January 2002 (age 19)
Place of birth: Zagreb, Croatia
Height: 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Playing position: Centre-back

I believe this kid has potential to be an excellent, modern CB. True, he established himself in the Croatian league, but is playing very good in the euro competitions.

His qualities: very fast and has high technical capabilities; he has great passing skills, providing build-up play from the back line including good long balls when shifting play to the other side; he is left-footed and God knows we need a good, young, technically excellent left-footed centre-back to be paired up with Araujo in coming years - this also means he can play as a left-back (was even used as a left-back in a couple of games for Dinamo Zagreb and he delivered).

The only downside of this player is that he is already been bought by RB Leipzig, apparently for 16M? (with Dinamo you never know ).

All in all, I think we should make a move for this kid in the coming years considering he will play for Leipzig starting next season. There are a lot of good players in the Bundesliga shopping window whose price tag just keeps going up and I have no doubt that Gvardiol will be among these kind of players.

 

[mdenci]

My guy killing it this World Cup and I'm so glad he plays for my national team.

The way he progresses with the ball from the back line... beautiful, similar to Frenkie. So calm in his passes when he's on the ball, very secure in dealing with tough situations. I'm just disappointed that he will never play for Barca though.

 

[Kul_z]

Splash that money. Animal

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

Good game from him

 

[Zidane82]

Yeah , outstanding.. only 20

 

[Raketa10]

What a player!!!

 

[fergus90]

Cracking tournament this lad is having. Can see why a host of big clubs are after him.

 

[gregorrin10]

Would be the ideal partner to Araujo. In a parallel universe where we had money, I'd love us to go all in for this guy and just move Kounde to RB permanently, since he's still better there than any other realistic RB option on the market. But I guess Christensen will have to do. And he's far from a bad option, it's just that his fitness is highly suspect most of the time. Plus Gvardiol seems to really have that leadership and staying calm under pressure trait developed better than anyone at his age, plus he's also a physical beast.

 

[Kul_z]

Would be the ideal partner to Araujo. In a parallel universe where we had money, I'd love us to go all in for this guy and just move Kounde to RB permanently, since he's still better there than any other realistic RB option on the market. But I guess Christensen will have to do. And he's far from a bad option, it's just that his fitness is highly suspect most of the time. Plus Gvardiol seems to really have that leadership and staying calm under pressure trait developed better than anyone at his age, plus he's also a physical beast.

Kounde araujo gvardiol balde back line would be abomination. This guy grew a lot since he signed for rb leipzig, but the amount of self confidence in that age..
Ffs. I can already see pep shipping us some of his cb's just to buy this guy for 20m more, and idiots as we are we're gonna do it.

 

[wisconsincule]

Kounde araujo gvardiol balde back line would be abomination. This guy grew a lot since he signed for rb leipzig, but the amount of self confidence in that age..
Ffs. I can already see pep shipping us some of his cb's just to buy this guy for 20m more, and idiots as we are we're gonna do it.

Yes. My vote is to keep Kounde at RB and sign another beast CB.

 

[DonAK]

Chelsea already offered 80m+ for him last summer. He'll probably become the most expensive defender in history.

 

[Barcilliant]

We should just steak Red Bull scouting. That would save us heaps in the future.

 

[Andresito]

[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] changed your opinion on him yet?

 

[BBZ8800]

[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] changed your opinion on him yet?

He is awesome in this moment.

I know, some guys will now say: you said he is shit and now you love him.
Well, that is because he was shit and had at least 1-2 goalscoring brainfarts 1 year ago and now turned into a best Croatian defender, aged only 20.

I thought that we are dead yesterday in the 93rd minute when the ball felt to Lukaku's legs almost on the goal line, and Gvardiol came out of nowhere and made a tackle with an outside of his left foot, while 95% of other defenders would fall down and watched the ball going into a net:

He reminds me of a young Puyol.
Puyol was a walking disaster in his first Barca's years (especially when playing as a RB) and he later turned into a Goat.
But, people will now use the same excuse/option for every young player (Pedri, Gavi, Balde = as in = yeah, look at Gvardiol, he sucked and turned into a super defender).
It happens sometimes, but once in 10 or 20 cases, not in every cases.

Only a year ago, he was making a deadly mistake on every match for Dinamo Zagreb in a CL.
And on Euro 2020 (or 2021'), he was a walking disaster (something like Roberto's level of defending).
He was the main reason of Spanish victory over Croatia (5:3), being the main reason for Spanish 2nd and 3rd goal.
Look at the goals from that match:
Spanish 2nd goal, what kind of defending is that, Azpilicueta was his player, he let him jump and score without any defending.
Spanish 3rd goal, a controversial goal when players were drinking water due to a hot weather and Eriksen's heart attack, and Spanish players decided to take a throw in during that water break.
On one hand, you could say that it was an asshole move from Spanish players, on the other hand, you could say that it was Gvardiol's rookie mistake not to be prepared for all the dirty tricks by the opponents.
He was drinking water, the ball came to "his" player Ferran Torres, Gvardiol was throwing the water bottle back to the coaches and lost a few miliseconds. Then he was late, easily dribbled by Ferran (and we know that Ferran has never made a dribble in his life) and that was 3:1 for Spain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r_PpiLSToU

He has single-handadly killed Croatia's hopes in that match (even though we came back to 3:3 in the 96th minute).
My opinion in those days was: don't ever again call this clown into an NT team.

Luckily, he has improved, but you need to ask a question: was it worth to ruin one tournament (Euro 2020) and to ruin 21 other teammates, only to give some learning experience and lessons to Gvardiol?

 

[Raketa10]

He is awesome in this moment.

I know, some guys will now say: you said he is shit and now you love him.
Well, that is because he was shit and had at least 1-2 goalscoring brainfarts 1 year ago and now turned into a best Croatian defender, aged only 20.

I thought that we are dead yesterday in the 93rd minute when the ball felt to Lukaku's legs almost on the goal line, and Gvardiol came out of nowhere and made a tackle with an outside of his left foot, while 95% of other defenders would fall down and watched the ball going into a net:

He reminds me of a young Puyol.
Puyol was a walking disaster in his first Barca's years (especially when playing as a RB) and he later turned into a Goat.
But, people will now use the same excuse/option for every young player (Pedri, Gavi, Balde = as in = yeah, look at Gvardiol, he sucked and turned into a super defender).
It happens sometimes, but once in 10 or 20 cases, not in every cases.

Only a year ago, he was making a deadly mistake on every match for Dinamo Zagreb in a CL.
And on Euro 2020 (or 2021'), he was a walking disaster (something like Roberto's level of defending).
He was the main reason of Spanish victory over Croatia (5:3), being the main reason for Spanish 2nd and 3rd goal.
Look at the goals from that match:
Spanish 2nd goal, what kind of defending is that, Azpilicueta was his player, he let him jump and score without any defending.
Spanish 3rd goal, a controversial goal when players were drinking water due to a hot weather and Eriksen's heart attack, and Spanish players decided to take a throw in during that water break.
On one hand, you could say that it was an asshole move from Spanish players, on the other hand, you could say that it was Gvardiol's rookie mistake not to be prepared for all the dirty tricks by the opponents.
He was drinking water, the ball came to "his" player Ferran Torres, Gvardiol was throwing the water bottle back to the coaches and lost a few miliseconds. Then he was late, easily dribbled by Ferran (and we know that Ferran has never made a dribble in his life) and that was 3:1 for Spain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r_PpiLSToU

He has single-handadly killed Croatia's hopes in that match (even though we came back to 3:3 in the 96th minute).
My opinion in those days was: don't ever again call this clown into an NT team.

Luckily, he has improved, but you need to ask a question: was it worth to ruin one tournament (Euro 2020) and to ruin 21 other teammates, only to give some learning experience and lessons to Gvardiol?

So Gvardiol alone was playing against Spain or have I missed something? BBZ just say it: "I was wrong". It's easy mate. Furthermore, he is nothing like Puyol. He is way better on the ball, much physically stronger and has much higher ceiling. If he continues to develop like we all hope, he will probably become one of the best, if not the best CB in the world. However, he must choose wisely his next club and stay injury free.