The Croatian national team has been a medalist at the last two World Cups. One strong generation is being replaced by another equally talented one. Luka Modric will be followed by other players. There is no doubt about it.
Roman PlyushchThe recipe for success is very simple: local clubs live off the sale of players. They raise them, sell them, make money, and so on in a circle. There are plenty of Croatian players in the leading championships, which makes the national team strong.
It is clear that it is not possible to train a player for the world's leading teams in Croatia. That's why no one is ashamed of selling players to third clubs. No one holds on to a player long enough to wait for a special position. For example, today, Joschko Guardiola is estimated at around 80 million euros and has the interest of Chelsea, Real Madrid, AC Milan, and PSG. Dinamo Zagreb sold him for 19. No one makes a tragedy out of it, that he was sold cheaply. The second point is the number of matches. Top talents under 20 should already have played up to 50 matches at the adult level. That's why someone is put in the squad in advance. It does not mean that they play all the time, they can be substitutes.
There is a whole galaxy of young Ukrainian players in Croatia now. Their number has increased significantly since the outbreak of the war. There is hope that the local football system will bring them to the top and make them quality players. A few words about them.
In 2004, Roman Plyushch was born in Croatia. He plays for the youth team Gorica. Now it is the last championship team in the HFL. Plyushch plays as a holding midfielder. This season, he has not had much game practice. Before the war, he was in the Shakhtar system.
Goalkeeper David Fesiuk, born in 2005, plays for the Haiduk youth team. He has been with the club since the summer of 2021. He is a native of Dubno. He was brought up in Slovakia - Slovan and Hamšík Academy. He was called up to the Ukrainian national teams in 2004 and 2005. Currently, he is the reserve goalkeeper of the youth team that reached the final four of the UEFA Youth League. He did not play a single minute in the tournament.
The same year, Stepan Lysenko joined Khaiduk. He plays as a central defender. He was raised in Dnipro football. He was in Croatia after the war started. He does not play for the youth team. He plays for the U-18.
Hajduk also has two players born in 2008 from Ukraine - Ilya Kutia and Dmytro Zudin. They are both players from Shakhtar's system. They are currently attending the Shakhtar Academy in Split. Kutia plays in the midfield, and Zudin is a forward. There was also Yevhen Leshchynskyi in this team, but he moved to Hungary in the winter.
The leader of the first league, FC Rudesh, has two young Ukrainians born in 2007 - Ivan Zaveriukha and Anton Kabuan. They play for the U-17 team. In Ukraine, they played for Dnipro.
Lokomotiv Kyiv also has two Ukrainians born in 2007 - Oleksiy Popov and Yevhen Livytskyi. Both of them also come from FC Dnipro. in Croatia after the war. They play for the U-17 team.
"Dinamo Zagreb has one Ukrainian, Demian Tretiak. I have not seen him in action in matches for the seventeen-year-old team. Tretiak came to Zagreb from the same UFC Dnipro.
Serhii Tyshchenko
