Will the "new Yarmolenko" come?

Themedia attributed Dynamo Kyiv'sinterest in 19-year-old Croatian Ante Crnak from the Slaven Belupo club to the club.

We all know that Dynamo's eyes are on Croatia in the person of Ognjen Vukojevic. Last autumn, Ognjen returned to Croatia. According to official information - for family reasons, according to unofficial information - he could not get on with Mircea Lucescu. Vukojević is the head coach of the Croatian U-20 national team. This team is a transitional team between the U-19 and U-21. It does not play official matches. Vuko knows the young players in Croatia very well, so there is no doubt that he has his recommendation.

Indeed, Crnak is similar to Yarmolenko in terms of his style of play. A player with good anthropometry, the ability to move from the wing to the centre. He knows how to work with the ball and has a shot.

"Slaven is coached by Ricardo Moniz, a former methodologist at RB Leipzig and Hamburg Academy. This is developmental football, where attack prevails over defence. After 5 rounds of the championship, Belupo has minus 7 in the goals scored column. Only the last two teams conceded more - Istra - minus 9 and Rudesh - minus 10. But on the other hand, there are 10 goals scored. This is the third best result in the league, on a par with the leader Hajduk (Dinamo Zagreb has two less matches due to the Champions League qualifiers and scored only 4 goals in 4 games).

Crnak actively played for the Croatian youth teams. However, this figure was decreasing every year. He played two games for the U-19 of the last convocation. He played one match for the U-21 at the end of 2022. He will be a candidate for the Croatian youth team in the next selection.

"What worries me the most about this story is that Dinamo Zagreb failed to see this player as a prospect. Zagreb is a system of developing players and then selling them. They have a very good sense of the player's potential and, accordingly, the opportunity to earn money. I don't know of any examples of players who were suitable for Dynamo and then made a career in another team.

Crnak has been in the Dynamo system since 2013, but he hasn't been able to play. He played for the U-19 team and Dinamo-2 in the Croatian First League. Crnak was released at the beginning of 2022 and Fran Topić was recruited to fill his position. A player of the same age. So far, he hasn't shown anything special.

The players who did not fit Dinamo Zagreb are somewhere around the level of Neven Djurasik or Mario Chuže, who came to Igor Jovićević at Dnipro-1. They seem to be good, but something is missing. The careers of these players are not very high.

So far, Crnak is taking his first steps in adult football. He has played too few games to draw any serious conclusions. If he continues to score (3 goals this season), the price of the player will increase and it will be difficult to win the competition. In such situations, the risk may be worth it. On the other hand, there are a lot of scouts from different countries working in Croatia. That's why they often inflate some stories about their interest in certain players for the sake of PR and increasing their popularity to drive up the price.

Serhii Tyshchenko