Dinamo Zagreb’s 21 year-old Spanish winger Dani Olmo scored the game winner for Spain’s U-21 side Sunday in the Euro 2019 championship against Germany. In the 69th minute, Olmo picked up a rebound in front of the net to make it 2-0 in a game that would eventually end 2-1 for Spain.
Olmo was a pivotal part of Dinamo Zagreb’s Prva Liga championship season and Europa League run into the Round of 16 this past year. He has 17 goals for Dinamo Zagreb in 71 appearances since joining the senior side in 2015. Olmo spent seven years in the Barcelona youth academy before joining Dinamo Zagreb’s youth squad for the 2014/15 season.
There have been rumors that the HNS would like Olmo to become a Croatian citizen so he could be capped by the Croatian senior side in international play. Under FIFA rules, Olmo has not been capped by a senior side yet which means he is still open to any suitor; with citizenship guidelines having to be met. Olmo has played for the Spanish youth teams since his U-16 days in 2014.
However, earlier in the year, Croatian media played a prank on Spanish media. On 2 April 2019, several Spanish media outlets reported about Croatia’s manager Zlatko Dalić trying to convince Olmo to play for Croatia and even asking the Croatian president to give the player Croatian citizenship so he can debut as soon as possible. The news turned out to be an April Fool’s joke by Croatian media, which Spanish media didn’t know.
There is always some truth to every joke.
The question is: would you want Olmo to put on the Croatian checkers with him having played in Croatia at club level since 2014?
The answer is simple for me: NO.
Croatia is one of the few international teams in the world with cultural purity. Even the dijaspora Croatians like Šimunić and Rakitić come from parents directly born in Croatia, speak the language fluently, and have embraced Croatian culture since Day 1. Christian Pulisic playing for the Vatreni would be the anti-argument even though he has Croatian grandparents.
The one exception is Eduardo, who came to Croatia as a young teenager for a better life and the possibility of playing 1st-league soccer. Eduardo was Croatia’s adopted son. He married a Croatian woman and brought up Croatian kids. Eduardo was the one exception to the rule. And you only get one. Sammir didn’t meat those requirements for me – yet unfortunately – he was capped by Croatia in an extremely short stint.
Olmo couldn’t hack it at the Barcelona youth academy and moved to Dinamo Zagreb instead. A player should not be able to play for Croatia just because he played in the Prva Liga for a few years – no matter what his talent level is.
If Olmo was able to be capped by Croatia, would you want to see him wear the checkers?
Olmo Goal vs. Germany U-21
Not sure. He probably never told them straight up he won’t play for them, but I’m sure they didn’t just give him citizenship solely because of sports. As far as I know, you can get citizenship without too much difficulty if you have a grandparent with citizenship. I may be wrong though.
@Vuki
Why was he given citizenship then if he didn’t state he wanted to play for us. Who is he Roger Maris?
That is another Hrvat that Americanized his last name. Hope the US doesn’t qualfy but in 8 years they will host. How nice.
@vuki
Being Croatian is not a choice.
Anywho hope we shut his ass down one
Day.
@Soul Champ
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Pulisic was never going to play for Croatia over the US unless either Croatia really gave him a crazy incentive to join or someone in the US pissed him or his family off. I don’t know the guy personally, but he was raised like 15 minutes from where I live and have met people who know him. He literally got citizenship to join Dortmund’s academy. Maybe there was a small chance he would choose Croatian, but he’s the definition of American. I remember him saying “I’m American so my name is pronounced the American way ‘Pull-is-sick'” not even ‘Pul-ish-itch.’
Also, this Olmo stuff is pretty annoying at this point. If he wanted to play for us, he would have made it clear by now and wouldn’t have even been playing for Spain’s u21s. I’ve also said about a million times that I’m pretty sure he isn’t even eligible anymore, but I may be wrong.
Big time money transfers, true.
Big time player for purchasing club, mostly false
@ BZ
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7205289/Man-Utd-make-35m-Spain-starlet-Dani-Olmo.html
Dinamo is a machine that just keeps on producing big time money transfers.
Olmo is our 6th best winger, can’t believe we lost that gem.
Pulisic, meh
@Soul
Being a small nation every drop of blood counts. We have to do better getting one of these guys to choose us. We don’t have a former colony of 190 million people to steal from.
@ Tomas
Preach !!
Zlatan is BEAST.
Decade of dominance.
Jebi ga .
Mark Viduka would have helped during our lean years.
They didn’t respect his direct style but he would of flourished for Croatia.
Instead he winds up knocking us out of 2006 World Cup.
@Soul
How about Zlatan for about 10 years? We would have been a force and won a Euro with him.
Another Zadar person? Zlatan’s mom was from there. We truly are a cut above.
Andrew Bogut should have been picked up as a teenager by HKS.
He was a specimen before all his injuries.
But HKS is no better than HNS.
I spoke to Rudy Tomjanovic back in the day at MSG when he was scouting some prospects at the Big East tournament.
I asked him to help out the HKS.
He said they weren’t interested??
Two time NBA Champion Coach!!
Sve znaju ..
The Croatian Soul lives all over the planet, it just needs to be activated.
Christian Mate Pulisic – Croatian citizen, is the anti-argument?
Mark Pulisic is born in Long Island of Croatian parents from Zadar area.
No Bilić – no Rakitic and Switzerland wins World Cup.
HNS – Mamić corruption plus Klinsman early cap for Pulisic was the issue.
Pulisic is the product of Croatian father to son training.
You think he has reached his level training the American way?
His father trained and guided his progress since birth.
Klinsman made the USA cap happen.
If HNS leadership was some what functional with a real coach at the time he would be playing for Croatia.
What American player becomes fluent in German like Pulisic has?
I love Croatia and all things Croatian and pray for our people.
But we all know the dysfunction that exists in our society and especially within HNS.
Pulisic competes with a Croatian soul.
I liked Eduardo and that leg injury was f’d up.
But his soccer soul was always Brazilian.
Actually Olmo’s soccer soul is more Croatian than Spanish.
I find it ironic that Pulisic just so happens to be the type of attack winger that we needed against France.
That u17 World Cup Croatia -USA match that went 2-2, the two best players on the pitch were Brekalo and Pulisic .. both Croatian!
Has any player of relevance ever come from Oostende?
This is a team with zero incentive of developing Palaversa. They’re just accepting him because they have a partnership agreement with Chelsea who gives them players for free (no salaries needed).
Chelsea just buys these guys in bulk, randomly loans them out to whatever team, and see what sticks.
Mario Pašalić has a good team around him, so they always made sure he was playing in a top league or a semi decent team like Monaco, Milan, Moscow, etc. Same goes for Nikola Vlašić, who made sure his loan was also to a good team where he has a defined role.
Palaversa’s camp are at fault for him being loaned to a near relegated club in a league barely better than the HNL. He should have just been loaned back to Hajduk for another year.
This is a very bad start to his young career.
Aren’t most of you guys the ones that hate when a young talent gets buried on the bench at a major club?
Isn’t this a blessing in your eyes?
I am more worried about coaching mismatches.
Oh no. Is it official? Any link to an article? He’s a huge talent we can’t lose him.
…and just like that, Palaversa’s career has come to an end.
On to the next one.
😉
Ante Palaversa will be playing for KV Oostende next year. Kv Oostende is a small Belgian side which plays in the highest Belgian league. Last year they barely managed not to relegate.
He’ll be playing with Goran Milovic (former central defender from Hajduk. Lets hope this works out for Palaversa.
Kv Oostende sure not is an impressive team. Lets hope he’ll soon move to a bigger team.
https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/06/27/mateo-kovacic-remembers-being-the-smallest-player–watching-vide
@Spaniard
Go back to Mexico!
@Tomas
What if he says…Para Casa, Lista!!!
Ha stupid Croats! Always wishing that some foreigner will bail you out. A Spaniard comes to Croatia and becomes the best player there. A Brazilian comes to Croatia and becomes their second all time leading scorer! Time for Croats to give up sports!
Who knows,… if he has a fallout with the Spanish FA, maybe he’d join hehehe
Ya he is good but we will have a homegrown olmo
Could just as easily been Brekalo scoring the winner
We will be just fine. We always are
Even In our dark days In the early 2000s we were still competitive
If he says Za Dom Spremni he can play.
NO, I don’t want Olmo to play for Croatia.
He’s stated that he wants to play for Spain. And I want players that can put their hand on their heart and FEEL the Grb.
Besides, we have enough talented domestic players who I’d rather see play.
I’m excited that Dinamo will get a cash windfall which will enable them to improve their youth development programme.
Also Olmo is a sign of things to come, if Dinamo are able to produce a player like him, soon we will be seeing domestic players like him produced by the conveyor belt…
boban/milan/modric
https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2019/07/01/5d19d0b922601dc46e8b4584.html
goran:
https://www.atptour.com/en/news/djokovic-ivanisevic-wimbledon-2019-sunday