Nikola Kalinic: Portsmouth to Sign ‘The Future of Croatian Football’
Portsmouth have begun talks with a young player that may be relatively unknown to English fans but has started to make a name for himself throughout Europe. That played is 21-year-old striker Nikola Kalinic.
The youngster is arguably one of the most highly-rated players to emerge in Croatia in the past 10 years and is beginning to make clubs around Europe sit up and take notice with his goal scoring exploits. The Hajduk Split frontman finished 2nd in the scoring charts in his country with 15 goals in 28 League appearances for his club. This followed on from a superb 2007/08 campaign which led to Kalinic being called up to Slaven Bilic’s Euro 2008 squad.
The young striker is so highly regarded in his homeland that Bilic described him as “the future of Croatian football” which is high praise indeed. The 2007/08 season saw Kalinic came of age in the Hajduk first team after returning from successful loan spells at Pula and Sibenik.
He finished 3rd top scorer in Croatia in 2007/08 with 17 goals in 25 League appearances (23 starts) despite his club finishing 5th in the 12-team division. This earned him a call-up to Euro 2008 despite being uncapped prior to the naming of the squad. Since then Kalinic has made three senior appearances (all as substitute) without scoring against Moldova (friendly), Poland at Euro 2008 and Andorra in World Cup qualifier.
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Kalinic was born in the small town of Solin and made his top division debut for Hajduk aged just 17 in the 2005/06 season. The young striker made 6 League appearances that season (2 starts). Even though he failed to score, his talent was there for all to see.
The following season Kalinic was sent out on loan to fellow Croatian side Pula where he scored 3 goals in 12 League appearances and was dubbed by their manager Krunoslav Jurčić as Croatia’s version of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He then joined Sibenik on loan where he managed to score 3 goals in just 8 League appearances prior to returning to Hajduk for the 2007/08 season when his career took off.
Kalinic has represented his country at every level from U17 to the seniors and is tipped by many in his homeland to follow in the footsteps of arguably the greatest Croatian striker in history - Davor Suker. However, he has a lot to live up to as Suker scored an incredible 45 goals in 69 internationals so any comparisons may be unfair. At U17 level Kalinic scored 16 goals in 20 appearances, at U19 level he scored 11 goals in 12 games and at U21 level he scored 3 goals in 3 game.
At 6 ft 1 he is built for Premier League football and would surely be of interest to a number of clubs searching for a striker. However, it would seem Portsmouth are firm favourites to sign him although both Bologna and Real Zaragoza are also set to bid.
So would you like your club to make a move for this exciting talent or would you prefer a striker from a stronger League than Croatia’s? Let’s hear your views.
Tags: Croatia, Hadjuk Split, Nikola Kalinic, Portsmouth
