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Welcome back to a new episode of the All Things Croatia podcast.
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I'm your host, Stanko Zovak.
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Born and raised in Los Angeles, I'm now living in Zagreb and studying the Croatian language.
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Before we start, just do me a favor and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're
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listening, as well as the Facebook and Instagram page.
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In this series, I'll be talking with people both in the homeland and around the globe who
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have connections to Croatia.
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We'll hear from startups, returning to Aspora, musicians and athletes, and the biggest Croatian
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celebrities and what returned my calls.
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But enough about me.
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I'm the Modalia, and let's get started.
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All right, welcome back to the podcast, everybody.
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In this episode, our special guest is Ante Kvartuc.
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Ante is from San Pedro, California, and is the founder of Croatiansports.com, which is
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a website dedicated to uniting Croatian fans around the world.
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Today, we're going to talk about how that got started, where it's at now, and hear about
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some of the Croatian sports legends interviewed over the years.
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Ante, thanks for coming on the podcast.
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Stanko, my pleasure, my man.
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Appreciate the time and appreciate everything you're doing out there in the moment.
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I know you're in Zagreb right now.
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Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it.
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Where are you at right now?
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I live in Redondo Beach, so I split my Croatian cultural duties in between San Pedro and Los
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Angeles at Svetlantas.
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I got out of San Pedro, live in beautiful Redondo Beach, California.
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That's where the Croatian sports operations are headquartered.
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Yeah, it is beautiful over there.
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I wanted to ask you about the LA or San Pedro community, because I've definitely seen you
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a couple of times at St. Anthony's over in LA, but I know on your bio, it says you're
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from San Pedro on your website, Croatiansports.com.
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You kind of mentioned you split your time between those communities.
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Yeah, definitely in the beginning years ago, as a kid, my mom and my dad, they're having
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a house was three blocks away from Hrvatské Dom in San Pedro.
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So, for the Fechta, and for whenever we had a baptism or anything like that, that was
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home base growing up.
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For the street parties, I'm sure you've been to many street parties in San Pedro where
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they close the street down, and they have the bands and the Chvap and all that stuff.
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That's where I grew up.
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I grew up doing Croatian language and learning Kolo at Mary Star Catholic Church, which is
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also two blocks away from the Dom.
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So, I grew up there.
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Then as I moved to Urdondo, which is about 15 miles from San Pedro, I started talking
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to some of your good friends.
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I know you know them well, the Svetkovic brothers, Jan and Nick, Mr. Petar Repar Zora
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in downtown LA at Sveti Antes.
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Obviously, they have a bigger hall.
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They throw some fantastic watch parties.
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Everyone's been to Croatian weddings at Sveti Antes.
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It's a part of me growing up.
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I went to the Baritíčovic wedding, I think, 12 years ago.
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He was a big Dinamovač and we were ragging on everyone saying, you have more Haiduk fans
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here than Dinamovači.
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It was just funny.
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But, you know, the Croatian community has a huge population in Los Angeles.
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But I've also learned it's nowhere near that of Toronto or Australia.
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That's something I always love talking about.
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I've always loved combining the cultures and connecting them, if I could.
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That's kind of my main mission statement with this website.
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Not just talking about sports, but we have Croatians all over planet Earth.
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And I always felt growing up.
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We've always been kind of disconnected.
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I was here like, oh, Toronto is having this awesome party down in Canberra.
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They're having this 5,000 person Croatian tournament and stuff.
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I'm like, what's going on?
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How do we get a piece of that?
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My roots are definitely in San Pedro.
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The last couple of years, especially during the 2018 World Cup with the Svetkovic brothers
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and Repa and everyone down there at Svetlantas, we've called that our new studio when big
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games are going on.
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So a big thank you to them for welcoming Croatian sports to that.
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Yeah, definitely something special going down at Svetlantas.
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One of my favorite places.
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Actually, you mentioned San Pedro and that I've been to all the street festivals and
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stuff.
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I've actually never been to any events in San Pedro.
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And I've always wondered what's kind of the difference between the San Pedro and the
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San Pedro.
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You've never been to San Pedro.
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You grew up in LA, right?
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Yeah.
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Well, Arcadia, Pasadena.
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You might as well be on the moon then.
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You might as well be on the moon.
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That's three hours from San Pedro in LA.
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Yeah, traffic.
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I joke.
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I joke.
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No, the big event is the soccer tournament.
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I know COVID shed a lot of stuff down and nothing's happened for the past two, three
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years.
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I know the soccer tournament's coming back this year.
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But during Croatian Independence weekend, which is Memorial Day weekend in the United
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States, which is a three-day weekend, they do the tournament on Saturdays, which has
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been awesome.
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I think they've ran it since 2008, 2009, something like that outside of COVID.
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I know teams from Cleveland and New York have flown out for that in the past.
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San Jose is always well-represented.
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Orange County here, a bunch of LA teams.
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And then they have the street party where they close the street down in front of Hrvatsky
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Dome on the Sunday.
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There's bands and it's just kind of like a mini-fecha, which is pretty cool.
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For the West Coast, to close down a street and get Croatian's room, especially the Western
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United States mostly, it's cool because we don't have a lot of super events outside of
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wedding.
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So that was ingrained for me.
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I was going since I was five years old.
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It's a part of who you are growing up in the diaspora, Croatian.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, next time I'm back in the States, I'm for sure going to check that out.
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You have to.
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You have to and check it out and compare it to everything that you're doing in Zagreb
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now.
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I know you've been out there for a couple of years.
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Yeah, just maybe like 14 months now.
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See, I feel, I've been following you.
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I've been following you.
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I love what you're doing out there.
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You're carrying the flag for Croatia from America to Zagreb and back in English.
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And I felt you've been doing this for three years already.
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So kudos to you because I know how hard it is to start something on social media.
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Yeah, yeah, definitely is.
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I've been trying to get some different stuff.
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My buddy George, we were talking about that earlier.
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We did some interviews on the streets about Steepin' Mjölicic.
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Now I'm doing the podcast, a couple of other things here and there.
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So yeah, I'm trying to get a little bit of everything going.
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I see you guys in the checkered pants in front of Bon Jović.
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I see you.
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I see you guys.
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Don't you worry.
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I see the guys over at St. Anthony's in LA wearing those.
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And when I came to Zagreb for the first time, I expected everyone to be wearing those checkered
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pants.
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Oh no, no, it's a whole different story over there.
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It's a whole different story.
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Yeah, everyone was looking at me.
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I couldn't understand why.
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Ante, where are your parents from in Croatia?
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Yeah, both my parents born and raised in Zadar.
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Mom from Gorica, dad from Polacca, right by Biograd Namoru.
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And I'm actually both my brothers born in Croatia as well in the 70s.
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And then I'm actually the only person in my family born in the United States.
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So I grew up in a super Croatian household.
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They tell me Croatian was my first language even though I'm still mad at myself for not
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perfecting it with all the rules and the padezji and all that.
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But yeah, I'm the only one born in my family in the United States.
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And I kind of felt growing up in San Pedro and going to Thomson concerts at Svetlana.
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We all grew up Croatian, hanging out with Croatian friends.
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I think a lot of people know, especially growing up in Canada, US, Australia, we had our Croatian
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friends and then we had our regular friends.
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That rule stuck with me as well.
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But yeah, I consider myself, I'm definitely American and I love my Dodgers and my Kings
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and NBA and NFL and all those sports, but it's nothing tops watching the Croatian national
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team.
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I haven't missed the game since 2005, I believe, Friendly's, anything like that.
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But we're Croatian.
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I just booked my tickets for Croatia this summer last night because of COVID.
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I haven't been there for two years, which is too long.
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I usually go every summer or for Božić or whatever.
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But yeah.
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I mean, I grew up Croatian and this was my team and when people tell me, like, oh, do
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you follow the American, the US national team or anything, I go, come on guys, come on guys.
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It's Batranera bus.
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So yeah, my parents are from Zadar, which means I'm spoiled growing up because I get
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to hang out in Dalmatia for the summer.
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So no complaints from me.
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Yeah.
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Is that where you'll be this summer when you come over?
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Yeah.
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I might go visit some family in Zadar, but I'm going to go take the girlfriend, the
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new girlfriend to Croatia for the very first time.
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She's excited.
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But we're going to start in Dubrovnik.
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She loves her Game of Thrones.
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So we're going to go hang out with some friends in Dubrovnik and start there.
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And maybe we'll go up north towards Makarskáta Split and back to Zadar.
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But that all has some later planning.
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I don't have a report for you on that yet.
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Yeah.
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I'll have to get the itinerary later.
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It's supposed to be a good year for tourism.
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There should be a lot of people.
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You know, before we sort of get into Croatian Sports.com and how you started that, I wanted
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to ask if you could talk a little about the little, give a little background about yourself,
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you know, where you started writing, you know, sort of your journalism career, how that took
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off.
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Yeah.
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So my brother, Brane Mjad, a lot of people know him in the Croatian community.
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He's based here in LA.
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He used to actually shoot for Crow Picks in Croatia.
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He's a professional.
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He's been a professional photographer for over 20 years and he moved back to Zagreb
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and Dubrovna for two to three years around 2010.
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So kind of on the same path that you did, went back to Croatia to work.
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But he was a professional photographer here in LA.
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He's 14 years older than me.
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So he's almost like a big brother slash, you know, father figure in my life.
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But when I was in high school, he had me put in an application for the Daily Breeze and
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the Daily Breeze is a pretty large newspaper here in the South Bay.
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Cover San Pedro, covers Torrance, covers Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, has about 100,000 person
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circulation to do video game reviews while I was in high school.
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So I wrote a good review.
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They sent me video games all the time.
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This is back with like the N64, the PlayStation 2, those kind of games.
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And I would write an article that would be on a main page of a paper that went out to
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100,000 people in the South Bay.
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And that kind of got me into writing, into expressing my opinions, all that stuff I used
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to go to the E3, which is the largest video game conference in Los Angeles.
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It has over 50,000 video game developers and nerds.
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And it's me, this little tiny Croatian guy, you know, like around with his pen and paper
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and camera walking around.
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And I think that's kind of where I kind of got my grit to, you know, I belong here,
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my opinions valued.
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But it was always fun writing opinion pieces.
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It was fun kind of expressing my opinion, saying, you know, what I like about something,
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what I don't like about something.
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So I think that's what kind of got me into writing and expressing my opinions.
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And, you know, with Croatian blood, being a good critic, because we're all good critics,
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right?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Now, when you say video game critic, that's, you know, they're shipping you the game and
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you have to go and play the whole thing and then write a piece about it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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As a 14, 15, 16 year old in high school, they would send me the game.
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They'd say, you know, write this in a week, give us your opinion, play the game and you
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have a deadline of a week and it teaches you about deadline and being on time.
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And then it came out every Friday morning.
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I'd go into, you know, into homeroom in high school Friday morning.
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I don't want to have a paper because like, we want to see Anta's review and I was always
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harsh.
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I was always giving, you know, C plus, D plus, D minus grades because I'm like, this game
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sucks.
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And yeah, I mean, I was a real journalist, baby journalist, of course, but in high school.
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I wasn't writing for, you know, the school paper.
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I was writing for a real paper with real writers and, you know, it was exciting.
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It was exciting to hear people's input.
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It was exciting.
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You know, you have Croatian, we all have alligator skin, right?
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Where you're 14, 15, 16, which seems so young now that I look back on it, but where people
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going like, this sucks.
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Your review is no good.
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And that's, you know, little, little Anta, because I always say me and Luca Mordit are
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the only Croatians under six foot on planet earth, you know, little Anta have alligator
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skin going, you know what, I disagree with you, man.
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I like this because of A, B and C. So, you know, you could do whatever with your review.
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You know, I'm putting my head out there.
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So that's my video game story.
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And kind of taught me to, you know, when you put yourself out there, you got to be prepared
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for the criticism.
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Yeah.
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You've got to have thick skin.
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Anytime you're, you know, kind of, even just having an opinion, but especially, you know,
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putting yourself out there in front of what, 100,000 readers, what kind of led up then
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from there until Croatiansports.com.
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Yeah.
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So that ended, that was just a high school gig, which kind of went into the 2008.
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Euro qualifying campaign.
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As all Croatian fans know, you know, our first World Cup in 98, third place, you know,
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again, almost, we were up 1-0 on France, we were going to go to the final 98.
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Croatia was hot.
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And then we completely cooled off for 10 years.
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You know, we'd never got out of group stage.
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We didn't qualify for Euro 2000, 2002, you know, we lose it with Ecuador.
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Nothing really happened.
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And, you know, us being Croatian, we know it's like, ah, we have the best players, you
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know, we, you know, they play for the best clubs in the world.
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But why can't we get this together?
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And then everything changed in Euro 2008 qualifying.
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When we beat England at Wembley 3-2 with that Mladen Petric goal, we were already qualified,
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but we, we knock England, mighty England out of Euro 2008.
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They don't qualify.
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Croatia's back on top of the world.
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There was just this, this, even though we just qualified for the tournament, knocking
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out England was a big deal.
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Because I remember at that time, the English media, and we all know how the English media
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are, they're very, very, very critical, very honest with, with, with the world.
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They called Croatia an inferior soccer nation.
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I remember that.
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I'll never forget that.
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I think it was in the mirror.
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One of their journalists called Croatian inferior soccer nation.
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Everyone will, will destroy them at Wembley on English soil.
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And we beat them 3-2 in a game we didn't even need with that, with that Petric goal.
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And there was a buzz again.
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And there was such a buzz.
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I started this, this blog.
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It started Croatian soccer report.
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And the reason I started it is going back to my brother, Branimir.
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He would see me on Sundays at my mom's house and I'm struggling reading German papers,
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like the build and I'm reading Ukrainian papers.
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I want to see, you know, once the players returned from international duty, they obviously
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go back to their, their club teams.
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But there was nothing in English that said, you know, what did Dario Surnadu at, at Shakhtar,
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what did, you know, Ivan Klastnich do in the Bundesliga.
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And I'm sitting there and for four or five, six hours at a time, looking at Ukrainian
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stuff, translating it, German stuff, translating it, you know, Seria translating it.
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He's like, why don't you just create a blog, start writing about it in English.
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And I'm sure there's thousands of other players for you.
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So we made the blog spot really quick.
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I started putting everything that I was collecting on Sundays into it and the rest is history.
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Yeah.
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So I'm sure around that time there was not much, if anything, in English.
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Nothing.
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Absolutely nothing.
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And I was, I remember every Sunday looking, you know, you see the games on Friday, Saturday,
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Sunday, just stressing out and he's like, what are you doing?
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He's like, create it.
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You be the first one and he, you know, going back to the journalism stuff and everything.
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He goes, just put it together, put it in a blog spot.
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We'll pay, you know, 10 bucks a month for, you know, blog spots to host it.
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And, and just organically over the years, we started collecting everyone in the diaspora.
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I mean, our largest audience right now is in Canada.
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And then it goes to US and Australia.
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But you know, there's, unfortunately, there's a lot of Croatians out there, you know, second,
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third generation and they grew up in Canada, US, Australia and their Croatian is not perfect.
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I can, I can speak it okay, but I'm not, definitely not perfect.
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But you know, our hearts with this team, our hearts with our players, I think being Croatian
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is, is different than being any other culture on this planet.
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And this is where they can follow it in their native English language.
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And apparently there's a market for it.
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00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:42,760
So that's, that's how it all started.
324
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:43,760
Yeah.
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00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:45,680
And that was back in 08, you said?
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Yeah.
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Launch of February, February 22nd, 2008 was, was the official, official birthday for it.
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So that's 14 years now.
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Crazy to think about that.
330
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Geez.
331
00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:57,480
Yeah.
332
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2008 was 14 years ago.
333
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Making me feel old.
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00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:03,480
Well, I can't imagine how that, how hard that must have been, you know, translating all
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these documents from what you said, German and Ukrainian.
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And I mean, I'm sure at the beginning you weren't like seeing all these people, you
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know, on board at first, you know, were there ever times where you were, you know, struggling
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to, to put everything in there?
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You know, like, like, like everyone wants a blog and everyone wants a podcast and everything.
340
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And I just treated it as a passion project.
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This is something I could do free the rest of my life.
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Do I want to heavily monetize it?
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Of course.
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Do you want to monetize your podcast?
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Of course.
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But I think you got to do it for love of the game.
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I absolutely love this team and what it represents on the world scale.
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And I think that goes back to me watching them at Euro 96, at World Cup 1998, where
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I was only 10 and 12 years old.
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And you know, like you see the checkers, I remember all the pain going through, you
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know, through my parents and my uncles and, and, and aunts and everything from 91 to 95,
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you know, all the tears.
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And you finally get to see Croatia with the checkers, with the awesome Lotto uniforms on
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the world stage, playing the Argentinas, the Denmark's, the German's and we're winning.
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00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:19,840
And you're going like, what, what an ultimate underdog story.
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I mean, we're Croatia's the ultimate underdog story.
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And then when you talk about them at the World Cup in Euro and winning water polo championships
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and, you know, we have Hrgovic, you know, boxing right now, the list goes on and on,
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you know, 92 basketball Barcelona.
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It's like, it's magical what we've done.
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With the 4 million.
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So if I can, if I can do anything to push that forward, where I were my expertise is
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00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:51,280
in, in English, the heart and the determination, the drive is there.
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00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:52,960
That's absolutely no issue for me.
365
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:53,960
Yeah.
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I mean, like you said, it's crazy how many, I'm not even 4 million at this point with
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the new census as well, like 3.8, I think 3.8, something like that.
368
00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:07,640
But it's crazy how many international great athletes that Croatia has, not, not just soccer,
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but every sport, you know, it's really, it's, but it's, but it's every sport.
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It's unbelievable.
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The, if you do the ratio of our population, you can even count diaspora.
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And I think there's more diaspora outside of Croatia than there is in.
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So let's call it 3.8 in, and I think six or seven out.
374
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So we'll call it 10 million give or take.
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What we're doing on the global stage in every sport year to year is absolutely amazing.
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And I think that goes back to the war in the nineties.
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And I think we have this heart and this drive that's just different than anyone else on
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planet earth.
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And maybe, maybe I'd be reporting on Croatia, even if I wasn't Croatian, but being Croatian
380
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and being, you know, born to two parents straight from, you know, they were born in
381
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:54,000
Zadad, you know, that I, it's, it's, it's my calling.
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00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:55,120
So I enjoy doing it.
383
00:20:55,120 --> 00:20:56,880
I enjoy interviewing people.
384
00:20:56,880 --> 00:21:01,440
I enjoy meeting people like you on your podcast and I just want to keep the party going.
385
00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:02,840
I completely agree.
386
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:03,840
Yeah.
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00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:11,360
I think Croatians diaspora is so proud of, you know, our athletes and our, our demovina.
388
00:21:11,360 --> 00:21:16,840
You know, so you started the Croatian sports.com only for soccer or football as, you know,
389
00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:19,480
I guess the rest of the world says, do they say that in Canada or no?
390
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:20,840
What do they say in Canada?
391
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:22,280
I think they say soccer as well.
392
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:25,480
I think soccer is US, Canada and Australia.
393
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:27,880
Everyone else's football and, you know, Nogomec.
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00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:28,880
Nogomec.
395
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:29,880
Yeah.
396
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:30,880
There we go.
397
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:35,320
So how did you sort of end up branching out into more Croatian sports?
398
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:39,600
The original name of the website, the blog was Croatian Soccer Report.
399
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:43,440
And I think we kept it, we kept it for two, two and a half years.
400
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:50,400
But what happened was our big breakthrough was, I believe it was 2010.
401
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:54,480
You know, we don't have access to any Star Leagues or anything in the United States.
402
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:57,880
You know, there's MLS, but all of our players play in Europe.
403
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:02,120
There's, you know, there's no, there's no doubt about that.
404
00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:05,280
But in the NBA, there weren't any Croatians.
405
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:10,760
But at the time, Andrew Boget was playing for the Milwaukee Bucks.
406
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:14,680
And we're like, God, this is the only Croatian guy playing in North America.
407
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:21,040
We reached out to the Bucks and the NBA and they're like, yeah, when he's in town in LA,
408
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:24,440
come by and you can do a 30 minute interview with him and we're going, are you kidding
409
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:25,440
me?
410
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,720
And we're like, I'm just these guys that have this blog and just writing about Croatian
411
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:29,720
Soccer.
412
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:33,440
And we go down there and we interview him and Andrew tells us like, he's just like, just
413
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:34,440
like my story.
414
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:41,760
He's born in Australia, but to two very hardcore, to a hardcore Croatian family.
415
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,960
He said he almost got wooed by Croatia to play for the Croatian national team.
416
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:47,520
But, but he stuck with Australia.
417
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:50,720
But, you know, he has a Croatian Goethe tattoo on him.
418
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:52,200
Like he's Croatian.
419
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:53,200
He just played for Australia.
420
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:56,240
So we talked to him, kind of put us on the map with our first interview.
421
00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:00,080
You know, you start getting taken a little more seriously.
422
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:04,800
But the guys at the NBA are like, Hey, like you're at the NBA, you're at a basketball
423
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:09,120
game, but your Croatian soccer report, what's not matching up here?
424
00:23:09,120 --> 00:23:14,320
And, you know, we, we, you know, talk about, you know, I was chili chat that time and on
425
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:18,120
Sheets and in tennis and, and it wasn't just soccer.
426
00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:19,640
We were talking Olympics, water polo.
427
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:23,520
And then I go, okay, we got a brand show because we can't look like kooks out there.
428
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:26,480
It go into water polo going Croatian soccer report doesn't match up.
429
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:32,600
I did a little bit of a rebrand to the Croatian sports.com.
430
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:38,320
And since then it's been Croatian sports.com where it kind of, we get to talk about anything
431
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:39,560
Croatian sports related.
432
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:44,920
You know, now that sounds like something that wouldn't happen today in today's day and age.
433
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,360
If you just reach out to the NBA, NBA say, Hey, I got a blog.
434
00:23:48,360 --> 00:23:49,840
I'm going to interview one of your players.
435
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,640
Like I feel like no way now, nowadays that happens.
436
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,080
How nervous were you in that first interview?
437
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:56,880
Incredibly, incredibly nervous.
438
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:01,680
I look back at that video and it's a sense of you don't belong there.
439
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:03,960
It's like you're talking to, and again, I'm five foot eight.
440
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,960
You have this seven foot one center, Andrew Bogut.
441
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,520
That's taller than me sitting.
442
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:10,600
You know, it's after a game.
443
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,360
He just showered and you're literally right next to him in the locker room with all these
444
00:24:14,360 --> 00:24:15,360
NBA stars.
445
00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:19,960
I remember Jerry Stackhouse was there who's a semi NBA legend and you're just shaking.
446
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:21,560
You're making sure the camera's on.
447
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:22,760
I'm literally reading a paper.
448
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:26,400
I'm not even looking him in the eye, trying to make a couple of jokes.
449
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:30,680
I think it went okay, but absolutely incredibly nervous.
450
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,720
You see all these, it was at a Lakers game.
451
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:37,880
So you see all, you know, Kobe was in the next locker room.
452
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:42,840
You know, you're just this kid in your twenties in an NBA locker room going, Oh shit, like
453
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:44,600
how the hell did I get here?
454
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:50,160
And you know, either you got to eat the nervousness or not, but you know, I was nervous for probably
455
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:56,880
my first 20, 30 interviews and now you just kind of know that you belong there and you
456
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,160
belong with the big boys and girls.
457
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:00,160
Hmm.
458
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:06,480
You know, I want to give you a chance to name drop here now and ask who else have you interviewed?
459
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,160
Who are some of the highlights?
460
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:12,240
Oh, I know what my number one is.
461
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:18,320
Number one's Luca Modric and I can kind of get to that in a second, but I think the coolest
462
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:22,880
thing the website has ever done was outside of politics, outside of politics.
463
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:27,160
I got so much, I got in so much trouble for this, but it was when Croatian president
464
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:32,320
Jocipovic was in LA, he was at UCLA doing whatever, something political, doesn't even
465
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:33,320
matter.
466
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:35,960
And there's all these Croatians that we went there.
467
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:37,240
We went there with the team.
468
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:39,720
See if we can pop him a question.
469
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:45,920
That was a time that Croatia and the Batra, the, the Sabas only played and I think it
470
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:49,240
was 2010 or 2011 only played at Maximir and Zagreb.
471
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:53,400
No, they never played in Osiek, never played in Rijeka, never played in Split, nothing.
472
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,080
It was just Maximir, Maximir, Maximir.
473
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:57,320
And we talked to him like, Hey, who are you?
474
00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:58,320
A soccer fan?
475
00:25:58,320 --> 00:25:59,640
He's like, of course I'm a soccer fan.
476
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,400
He's like, well, we know your base in Zagreb is in that.
477
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,760
And I ask him in the most broken Croatian.
478
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:11,800
I think I didn't even, I think I addressed him as, as a T and not V and I got, I got
479
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:12,800
crushed by everyone.
480
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,280
Just on the going on that what you just, you just, what are you buddies with the Croatian
481
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:17,280
president?
482
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:18,280
I go, ah, shit.
483
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:19,280
What did I do?
484
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:23,680
Um, but we asked him like, Hey, when, when, when the Croatian national team going to
485
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:29,000
play in, in Split that pulled you like it's Dalmatia, it's pulled you, it'd be rocking.
486
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:30,520
And he says tongue in cheek.
487
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:34,000
I don't even know if he thinks he was on camera because I just had my iPhone up.
488
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,680
He goes, but it's not a little mafia dolly.
489
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:38,680
Split.
490
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,920
He's like, we know that there's mafia down in Split so they can't play down there.
491
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,960
And everyone just went, what the hell did he just say?
492
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,840
We posted it, not knowing that it was like a big thing.
493
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:53,560
We're like a hundred people see this, whatever Croatian media picks this up.
494
00:26:53,560 --> 00:27:00,440
It's on, it's on every front page of like Utah, and so on, and everything the next day.
495
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:08,600
And we now we transcended sports, we transcended Croatian culture with one question with the
496
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,520
president in Los Angeles.
497
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:12,520
And guess what?
498
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:17,520
Three months later, guess where the, guess where Croatia played in Split?
499
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,520
I pulled you.
500
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:24,160
The first game in years and people go, well, you're responsible for that.
501
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,480
And I'm like, you tell me.
502
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,920
Yeah, maybe you could, you could take credit for that.
503
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,440
But that's kind of, that's kind of the news breaker.
504
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:39,280
But my number one, and then my number one is not that it was like the best interview,
505
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:44,680
but Real Madrid and Luca Modric were playing at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
506
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:48,560
And obviously, you know, I can't, it's hard to be in Europe during the season because
507
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,960
the season runs, you know, from September to May.
508
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,120
And if you're going to go to Croatia, you're going to go to Croatia in the summer from
509
00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:57,360
North America, obviously.
510
00:27:57,360 --> 00:28:02,040
We asked, we asked the MLS, we asked Real Madrid for credentials for their exhibition
511
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:03,040
game.
512
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,000
I remember it was against Everton at Dodger Stadium.
513
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:10,800
This was Luca Modric's first full off season.
514
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:15,240
He was just, he was just called the biggest bust of La Liga.
515
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,320
He was there for one year and he was shrugging it off.
516
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,880
We know what he's done now at Real Madrid.
517
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:22,440
He's an absolute legend.
518
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:27,040
But the story goes, and this is why being Croatian is special and I almost get chills
519
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:28,560
by it.
520
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:29,560
You do media lines.
521
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,000
You don't get one-on-one time with anyone with Real Madrid.
522
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:37,240
I mean, Zidane is on their coaching staff, Modric is there, Ronaldo's passing within
523
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:42,600
one foot of me, Marcelo, like Real Madrid legends, right?
524
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:49,800
And there's this media line of me and my good friend from Los Angeles, Matt Lebo.
525
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:52,320
A lot of you guys know Mr. Matthew Lebo.
526
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:57,040
It's me and him with a small camera and a microphone and all these Real Madrid players
527
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:58,640
are on this media line.
528
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:03,120
But the Real Madrid PR comes out and says, no Real Madrid players will do, will be doing
529
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,600
interviews and all the media is like, ah, come on.
530
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,760
Like we've been waiting here for two hours after the game.
531
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:09,920
Ronaldo walks by.
532
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:11,320
Zidane passes by.
533
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,760
I think Ancelotti, Ancelotti was their coach.
534
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:17,560
He passes by at that time and I'm like, ah, man, Fox is there.
535
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:20,920
Marca's there, which is this biggest Spanish paper.
536
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:22,200
ESPN is there.
537
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:28,760
I mean, the biggest sports outlets out there and Luca passes by and I'm like, hey, Luca,
538
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,320
I'm encroaching with Luca, Luca, Luca, Molinta, Molinta, Molinta, some of you are not beat
539
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:33,320
on yet.
540
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:35,400
You know, one question, please, please, please, please, please.
541
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:40,800
And this is right before we're going to play Serbia in World Cup 2014 qualifying.
542
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:42,320
So that's what we talked about.
543
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:43,960
He comes over.
544
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:48,400
He comes over, he stops, I go, hey, I know you can't have any questions right now.
545
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:49,880
Can I just ask two, three questions?
546
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:51,400
Hey, my family's from Zadar too.
547
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:52,400
Sure.
548
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,240
So we talked about that.
549
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:58,720
The big question he answered was, I asked him, like, we're going to play Serbia in a
550
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:00,800
couple weeks.
551
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:02,200
Is that a regular game or not?
552
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:06,280
He goes, no, it's never a regular game when you play for Serbia.
553
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:10,480
We know who they are and we always go a little bit extra and I'm like, that's awesome.
554
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,240
I mean, I have chills right now.
555
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:14,240
So he leaves.
556
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:15,520
He's like, thank you, thank you so much.
557
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:17,840
He walks by and you go.
558
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:22,480
And these reporters that I see on ESPN from Modica, from Fox, they come over to me like,
559
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:27,200
how the hell did Luca Mordic just talk to you right now?
560
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:32,240
And I think that's a testament to being Croatian is like, I think we'll always make time for
561
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:34,600
each other no matter what.
562
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:36,040
And he's not the first.
563
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:37,040
And he's not the first.
564
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,840
It's obviously easy to talk about Mordic, but like, I have chills right now talking to
565
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:40,840
you about this.
566
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:46,720
The fact that, you know, he's in this line with Zidane and Ronaldo, two of the greatest
567
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,520
players and they have their headphones and they're just walking by.
568
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:53,040
He stopped for a little old me for two minutes and I think that's what's special about being
569
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:54,040
Croatian.
570
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,240
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's surreal.
571
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:57,240
Yeah.
572
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:02,640
All these other huge, what huge companies, huge media reporters are coming over and asking
573
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:03,640
who are you?
574
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:05,400
They're literally going, who are you Croatian sports?
575
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:06,640
Like, why are you special?
576
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,560
And I go, he goes, I just go, that's my boy.
577
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:10,560
And that's it.
578
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:11,560
Yeah.
579
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:12,560
With Luca too, no doubt.
580
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:17,440
I mean, just to go off topic for a second, where is Luca among, you know, greatest Croatian
581
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,080
athletes on the list?
582
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:21,960
For you.
583
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:24,680
I mean, the guy want to belong to Orr.
584
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:26,440
He's up there with Petrovic.
585
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:28,680
He's up there with Balban.
586
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:34,200
I mean, what he's done in soccer with, with Real Madrid and Croatia, bringing him to the,
587
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,520
I was young with Petrovic, but Petrovic is Petrovic.
588
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:45,880
I mean, you put him, you put him up there with Petrovic, you know, God rest his soul.
589
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,280
I mean, I've, I've, I've carried his whole career.
590
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:52,480
I mean, he's, he's easily one A, one B with, with Petrovic, in my opinion.
591
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:53,480
Yeah.
592
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:54,480
I mean, he's something else.
593
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:58,600
It's crazy how, how he's still managing to produce, you know, such a high quality level
594
00:31:58,600 --> 00:31:59,760
of play at his age.
595
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:04,760
Well, I say, I say, you know, he was, he was the biggest bus in the league as the first
596
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,520
year in, in, in Spain, and he's getting better with age.
597
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:10,360
A lot of people say, oh, he's like a fine wine.
598
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,040
He's getting better with age.
599
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:13,040
But I stopped saying that.
600
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,040
I said, he's a bottle of, you know, Louis the 13th.
601
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:20,640
He's a $3,000 bottle and he's only, his value has only been going up the last two years.
602
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:25,560
And what he did with the World Cup, it's, it's absolutely insane what he's doing.
603
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:30,520
But if you watch the games for all those hardcore football fans that watch champions, like, you
604
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,600
know, I watch every single one of his Real Madrid games, what they did against Manchester
605
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,120
City, and I don't know when you're going to post this, but they just, they just scored
606
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:42,800
three goals on Manchester City this, this past week in, in, in Champions League.
607
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:46,400
Like he has, he already has four Champions League titles.
608
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:50,360
He's been to the World Cup final, but to see him beat Manchester City in a semi-final,
609
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:54,120
somewhere he's been before, with Benzeman and all, and Marcelo and all those guys and,
610
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,960
and looking like children out there, like they just won their first championship and,
611
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:02,240
and like the joy and the celebration, the jumping, like he's in it for love of the game.
612
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:03,240
He's in it for love of the game.
613
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,000
That's what we appreciate about him the most.
614
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,000
He's not going like, I've been here already.
615
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,600
Like he's playing like a, like a kid, like a 15 year old kid.
616
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:11,800
And I think, I think we can all relate to that.
617
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:12,800
Yeah.
618
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:17,120
The passion which he plays with and, you know, always hustling, always, always trying.
619
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,600
I like, I'm not a, I wasn't a huge soccer fan growing up.
620
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:25,000
So I like the fact that, you know, he doesn't dive like some players, you know, stereotypical
621
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:26,000
American.
622
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:29,320
That's kind of why we always hated soccer aside from the fact that we say it's boring,
623
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,680
you know, it's just all the flopping and the diving.
624
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:36,600
So you see that of course in all the sports now, especially basketball, but I like him
625
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:40,200
that, you know, he plays through everything and he's not trying to sell.
626
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:41,200
He's the mighty magician.
627
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,560
You know, he's that tiny midfielder.
628
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:47,600
You know, he's, he's, he's short for, for his position, but he doesn't need it.
629
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:51,760
But what he did in the second leg of the Manchester city game, like he, I forget who
630
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,120
on city he grabbed, but he grabbed his throat for a second.
631
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,120
Nothing too bad.
632
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:58,280
But he goes, Hey, this is, this is our game.
633
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,400
He showed his, his backbone, uh, because the guy in city flopped exactly like you said
634
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:03,400
right now.
635
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,200
And, and I think, you know, we need more soccer players like that.
636
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:10,120
Actually, I saw that you just posted that the other day on corrosion sports.com.
637
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:12,560
It was a great picture.
638
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:17,440
It was Luca, Luca choking man city as man city choked in champions.
639
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:19,360
Like it was poetic.
640
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:20,640
Poetic.
641
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:25,600
I want to get back to, uh, Luca and the soccer team in a little bit, but before that I want
642
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:29,520
to get back to the interviews and ask, you know, have you had maybe a, an interview you
643
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:31,120
wish you could get back?
644
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:38,080
Um, not something that didn't go well or not, not, not get back, not get back, but there's
645
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:41,480
one guy in the NBA and thank God he's not in the NBA.
646
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:44,400
He was just always on his high horse.
647
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:51,200
He always thought he was the MVP, but Mario Hezonia from Dubrovnik when he played for
648
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,240
Orlando was always too cool for school.
649
00:34:54,240 --> 00:34:57,080
Um, I told him like, Hey, you're, you're only in town for one night.
650
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:58,360
Let me ask you a couple of questions.
651
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:03,960
It's an Adam Croatian and just always gave us a hard time.
652
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:04,960
Always gave us a hard time.
653
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:05,960
Too cool for school.
654
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:07,880
Always had his kind of nose up in the air.
655
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,240
Um, and he's the only one that's ever given me issues.
656
00:35:11,240 --> 00:35:17,240
Whenever I go to tennis tournaments and talk to, to Chile, for example, or even like Modric
657
00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:25,240
Lucianist in the example that I just gave you or the, the, the, the president of Croatia
658
00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:27,160
or a Racket, teach or Schubert, all these guys come over and give me time.
659
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:32,240
He's the only one that was ever too cool for school and he's no, he's playing like Turkey
660
00:35:32,240 --> 00:35:33,240
or something now.
661
00:35:33,240 --> 00:35:34,240
So that's what it gets.
662
00:35:34,240 --> 00:35:35,240
I really, I didn't know that.
663
00:35:35,240 --> 00:35:36,240
Yeah.
664
00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:37,240
Huh.
665
00:35:37,240 --> 00:35:41,240
I mean, he wasn't, he was, I guess, sort of an, an average player in the NBA.
666
00:35:41,240 --> 00:35:42,960
He had that block against LeBron.
667
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:47,200
I remember to, to win some, I think it was a regular season game, but he blocked the
668
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:48,200
block against LeBron.
669
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:49,800
I think that was maybe one of his biggest highlights.
670
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:50,800
Yeah.
671
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:51,800
He had, that was about it.
672
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:53,680
That was his highlight reel, but he was too cool for school.
673
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,640
I think he was a top five or top six pick a couple of years ago, but he did nothing
674
00:35:57,640 --> 00:35:58,640
with it.
675
00:35:58,640 --> 00:35:59,640
And I think it was attitude.
676
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:01,840
He, I think he just thought he was better than he was.
677
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:06,560
I could kind of tell that talking to him and, uh, good riddance Mario Hezzania.
678
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:11,480
Well, you know, that kind of got me thinking, speaking about, you know, high round picks
679
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,280
about a drug on Vendor, whatever happened to him.
680
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:15,280
Is he still in the NBA?
681
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:16,280
I don't think so.
682
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:17,280
He was, he got picked up.
683
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:18,280
I didn't follow.
684
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:22,240
I, yeah, I think he was with the box last time I talked to him, but he really, he really
685
00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:24,200
didn't, he really didn't do anything.
686
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:29,360
I mean, look, Bogdanovich is, is old, but he's, he played well this season for Utah
687
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,240
Jazz, Zubats and LA is kind of doing what he's supposed to.
688
00:36:33,240 --> 00:36:38,080
But we just don't have that, that, that star, star player.
689
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:44,240
We haven't had a star player since, you know, Tony Kukocz, Dino Raja and Petrovic and all
690
00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:46,480
three of them are in the NBA Hall of Fame.
691
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:47,480
Yeah.
692
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:48,480
Do we have anyone on the way?
693
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:49,480
Any young guys?
694
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:53,000
I remember Shaminich was looking good for a while, what, one, two years back.
695
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:54,000
Yeah, with the Spurs.
696
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:55,000
Yeah.
697
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:56,000
It's, it's, it's tough.
698
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:57,000
NBA is tough.
699
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:00,440
Playing professional basketball against the best teams and best players in the world is,
700
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:02,000
is, is tough to crack.
701
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:05,400
Um, you know, I think Bogdanovich is still our number one shot.
702
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,840
Each was looking good for a second, but then he tore his knee in the NBA finals last year
703
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:10,200
and he hasn't recovered from that.
704
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:11,200
So we have to wait on him.
705
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,560
But, um, the Spurbats is puttering, puttering around.
706
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:16,480
He's doing what he can for Clippers team.
707
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:20,600
That's, that's kind of, you know, they were without Kauai and Paul George this year.
708
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:23,040
So, um, we'll see.
709
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:27,560
We're going to have to wait for a new generation because this, this one doesn't look like, like
710
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:28,560
it's cutting it.
711
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,600
They didn't make the Olympics, which is kind of heartbreaking because they had a plane
712
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,240
tournament in Spaleth and just kind of sucks.
713
00:37:33,240 --> 00:37:34,240
Yeah.
714
00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:35,240
That's sad.
715
00:37:35,240 --> 00:37:39,440
I mean, I was always basketball was sort of my biggest, you know, sport growing up that
716
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:40,440
I rooted for.
717
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:44,160
So, you know, it's tough to see that they didn't make the Olympics with the squad.
718
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:48,440
We'll always have the 92 Barcelona Olympics when we played the dream team and got silver.
719
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:49,440
Oh man.
720
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:50,440
Yeah.
721
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,440
Lost by the least amount of points to the U.S.
722
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:58,120
But we were up what, at halftime or at the end of the first quarter or halftime, I think
723
00:37:58,120 --> 00:37:59,120
we were up.
724
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:00,120
Yeah.
725
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,360
We played him, we played him tough and like, I think we played him, I have to look back.
726
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,400
I was six years old, but, uh, I think, I think they crushed us in the gold medal game,
727
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,600
but in the group stage game, I think we played him twice.
728
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:13,280
It was actually tight and we got their respect with Jordan and Bird and Magic and all those
729
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:14,280
guys.
730
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:15,280
Yeah.
731
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:17,960
Well, did you watch that, um, the last dance when they talked about Kukoach and how they
732
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:18,960
wanted to?
733
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:19,960
Of course.
734
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:20,960
Of course.
735
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:21,960
Of course.
736
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,680
That was, that was a great six part documentary and I'm glad Kukoach got his, uh, his 20 minutes
737
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:26,680
of fame in that doc.
738
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:27,680
Yeah.
739
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,520
That was awesome to watch and telling just talking about how they put everyone on him
740
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:33,880
and, you know, just harping on in the whole game.
741
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:38,120
You know, I wanted to ask you since, you know, soccer is your thing, you know, we're talking
742
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:41,560
about Moldridge, we're talking about the World Cup.
743
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:43,400
What should we expect for this World Cup?
744
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:44,400
It's what?
745
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:45,720
November or the first games?
746
00:38:45,720 --> 00:38:46,720
Yeah.
747
00:38:46,720 --> 00:38:47,720
November 21st.
748
00:38:47,720 --> 00:38:52,440
It's going to be, it's going to be the first North American winter World Cup because it's
749
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,120
in Qatar and it's too, too hot in the Middle East.
750
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,400
I think kickoffs, the first game is November 21st.
751
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:02,520
Um, you know, if we have, we have a great group.
752
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:08,640
I love our group with, uh, with Morocco, Canada and Belgium.
753
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,240
Uh, I think we're definitely getting out.
754
00:39:11,240 --> 00:39:12,520
I think we're going to handle Canada.
755
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,840
I think we're going to handle Morocco and then we'll see what happens in Belgium.
756
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:20,120
If you talk to, if you see what everyone's, all these world soccer journalists and football
757
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,960
journalists are saying on Twitter and blah, blah, blah, they're writing Croatia off as
758
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:29,200
an old team, you know, that all we have is Moldridge and boy are they in for a rude awakening.
759
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,480
Um, we have Moldridge who's still playing lights out.
760
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:37,920
Probably the best holding midfielder in, in the world right now.
761
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:43,240
No one talks about Marcelo Brozovic, who's arguably the best center defensive midfielder
762
00:39:43,240 --> 00:39:44,840
who plays for Inter Milan.
763
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:49,680
I mean, they bolster that we have Petrishic who was into Milan's top three player this
764
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:50,680
year as well.
765
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:52,320
Uh, we'll see who we put on the right wing.
766
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,640
Maybe we'll put Brekler or she wakes up.
767
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:59,680
Um, but we might have the best defense that Croatia's ever had.
768
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,880
So, so, so, so, so place for Stuttgart, he's getting linked up with teams in England or
769
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:05,600
Barcelona might pick them up.
770
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:07,600
He's one of the best.
771
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:08,840
Left backs right now.
772
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:09,840
And he's so young.
773
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:10,840
He's in his early twenties.
774
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:17,240
Um, no one's talking enough about Yoshiko Guadalil, who's 20 years old and he's going
775
00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:18,480
to get picked up by someone huge.
776
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,440
I mean, he's going to be a rock back there.
777
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,920
Um, you know, if it's your place for Celtic, you know, him and, and Versailles will go
778
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:26,480
back and forth.
779
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:27,680
We're going to have a defense.
780
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,280
We have arguably the best midfield, midfield still in the world.
781
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:32,480
Like there's no question about that.
782
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,360
I'm not saying that just because I'm Croatian.
783
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,680
We need to figure out two things.
784
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:39,840
We need to figure out who, who can score for us up top.
785
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,960
Karmadij forgets who he is when he puts the checkers on.
786
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:48,560
He just misses too many bonehead easy shots and I have absolutely zero faith in Lvivakovic
787
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:49,560
and goal.
788
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:52,920
So we need to figure out who's going to be our goalie in November and we need to figure
789
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,080
out who's going to score goals in the, in the, in the number nine position up top for
790
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:57,080
us.
791
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:58,080
And then we need to figure out who to do lists.
792
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,080
Well, you hit on the goalie.
793
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:01,080
I wanted to ask about that.
794
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:03,560
Lvivakovic played most recently as goalie, right?
795
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:09,360
And this last one, yeah, he came, he came, he came back, he came back, but it's like
796
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,160
evil gooder beach who's still part of athletic gold Madrid.
797
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:13,760
He's on loan at Lille.
798
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,560
He had a game two months ago that he got absolutely toasted by PSG.
799
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:17,560
He made two mistakes.
800
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:19,720
Um, and now he's been benched since then.
801
00:41:19,720 --> 00:41:24,600
So now, you know, it's hard to play a goalie that's, you know, benched.
802
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:28,960
Um, but then even say, if you should replace for us, you know, he's actually been pretty
803
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:33,640
good, but you know, he's a Hanell goalie, but so is Lvivakovic.
804
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:38,640
So I, if you're, if you're asking me, it's open season on goalie.
805
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:40,720
We're going to see what happens in nations league this June.
806
00:41:40,720 --> 00:41:42,360
We have three games.
807
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,840
We're going to play a France and split, which is, which is going to be a sexy matchup.
808
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:50,120
Um, but as far as I'm concerned, we do not have a number one goalie right now.
809
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:56,720
And I'm absolutely done with Lvivakovic because he has zero, uh, zero confidence in goal.
810
00:41:56,720 --> 00:42:01,400
He has zero, uh, awareness on where he is on those balls, punching them out in this
811
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:05,760
that he just looks nervous and that, and I looked nervous watching him play.
812
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:10,200
So if you're asking me, it's, it's between Goodevich and Iwashits right now and it,
813
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:11,200
but it's open season.
814
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,240
Whoever plays the best next six months gets that number one jersey.
815
00:42:14,240 --> 00:42:20,320
Now, even after what Lvivakovic did during the World Cup 2018, then, um, if I remember
816
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:22,320
correctly, Subashits got hurt at one point.
817
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:27,320
I forget which game it was and he came in and saved a couple or am I misremembering?
818
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:29,880
No, that was, that was Subashits World Cup.
819
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,800
He was in there and Subashits is a, is a World Cup goalie legend.
820
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:38,000
Um, there's, he's only the, the second goalie.
821
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:43,280
I think it was Argentina 1990, the second goalie to win a two penalty kick shootouts
822
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:44,680
in the same World Cup.
823
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,600
No, only one other goalie on planet earth has done that was an Argentinean goalie in
824
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:50,840
the nineties, but that was Subashits was the goalie there.
825
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:55,000
I think Lvivakovic came in maybe for the Iceland game, which didn't even matter for
826
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:56,000
us.
827
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:57,000
I think that's what you're referring to.
828
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:58,000
Uh, it might have been.
829
00:42:58,000 --> 00:42:59,000
Yeah.
830
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:01,760
I just remember he had a couple nice, uh, nice saves during that game.
831
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:05,600
But yeah, Subashits, oh man, during those penalties, I was getting, I was almost having
832
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:07,720
a heart attack every game that was special.
833
00:43:07,720 --> 00:43:08,720
It was special.
834
00:43:08,720 --> 00:43:09,720
It was special.
835
00:43:09,720 --> 00:43:12,680
Every Croatian on planet earth, no matter where you're at, will remember exactly where
836
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:16,920
they were for the Denmark game, for the Russia game, for the England game and the World Cup.
837
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:21,720
I mean, those are, I think four games that are cemented into our brains forever.
838
00:43:21,720 --> 00:43:22,720
And what a ride.
839
00:43:22,720 --> 00:43:26,800
What a, you know, miraculous, miraculous ride.
840
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:31,440
And you know, that, you know, nail piece of all was, was the word and how, how appropriate
841
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:33,040
that word was that summer.
842
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:34,040
Yeah.
843
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:35,040
Oh man, that was crazy.
844
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:36,040
Yeah.
845
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:39,960
I'm sure everyone, everyone, every Croatian remembers that moment and how crazy that World
846
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:41,880
Cup was where you were.
847
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:42,880
Yeah, I was at St. Anthony's.
848
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:45,560
I don't know if you were maybe in San Pedro or at St. Anthony's.
849
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:46,560
I was there.
850
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,560
I was there, but I don't remember anything because we were, we were drunk the whole time.
851
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:53,160
So I'm sure we crossed paths and talked, but we don't remember because we were just, we
852
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:54,160
were on cloud nine.
853
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:55,160
Yeah.
854
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:56,160
Oh, that was crazy.
855
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:57,160
That was crazy.
856
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:02,040
Um, you talked about, you know, a striker who's going to score up top since Manjul
857
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,760
gets left, you know, he was, I'm pretty sure he was the tallest player we had and he would
858
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:08,040
be the tallest player.
859
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,800
Um, if he was on today, I feel like I was always watching him get headers, you know,
860
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:13,680
off the set pieces and the corner kicks.
861
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:19,160
And now every time we have a corner, I, I feel like I have no faith and like, I don't
862
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:20,160
know.
863
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,880
I just, I've had no faith in, in our set pieces and in our corners lately.
864
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:28,040
I feel like someone like in your right and having no faith.
865
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:29,040
You're absolutely.
866
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:30,040
Yeah.
867
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:31,040
You, Manjul was a point man.
868
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,520
He's like, he was like the, the, the Shaquille O'Neal, that number five in basketball, that
869
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:36,160
center that you can dish the ball up to.
870
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:37,760
He holds up play.
871
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:39,800
We don't have a player like that right now.
872
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:42,200
Um, we don't have a player like that.
873
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,080
Um, he's more technical.
874
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,520
Kramaric is supposed to play behind the main striker.
875
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,200
He's supposed to be a supporting striker.
876
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,800
So you can't put Kramaric in a, in a, in a role like Manjul.
877
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:53,680
They don't work the same.
878
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:55,960
We've dabbled with Paschalic up there.
879
00:44:55,960 --> 00:45:00,680
Um, but more importantly, we have this striker coming up.
880
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:03,320
Uh, Rocco Simic.
881
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:08,200
He's the son of, of, uh, of Dario Simic, who's a Croatian legend, been capped a hundred
882
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:09,200
times.
883
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,280
He's still in the court for, for Salzburg right now.
884
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:12,720
Uh, and Lee footing.
885
00:45:12,720 --> 00:45:17,280
That's their feeder club in Austria, still young, only 18 years old, but he has a nose
886
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:18,280
for net.
887
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:21,080
I want to go on record right now to watch out for that guy.
888
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:26,560
Um, and one, one thing I want to say on that point, I want to give a huge shout out to,
889
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:28,280
to my, my U 21 team.
890
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:34,320
I have these guys on the website and, and, and one thing I want to say about this website
891
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,040
to everyone out there is it's not my website.
892
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:42,360
I write the majority of articles out there and, and, and I probably have the most face
893
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:47,120
time because, uh, interviews are sort of difficult, but it's everyone's website.
894
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:49,360
I have it stonkled tomorrow.
895
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:53,640
If you said I want to write a piece on Croatian basketball or Croatian soccer, the floor is
896
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:54,640
yours.
897
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,160
And that's what I want everyone to know is, you know, it's not just me.
898
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:02,960
It's, it's these, I have a crew of 10, 12 guys that are writing, uh, but big props to,
899
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:09,720
to my boy Marcus and Montreal who have never met and, and Croatia U 14, they for the past
900
00:46:09,720 --> 00:46:15,160
two, two, three years have been saying the shimmy striker is going to be the real deal.
901
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:18,700
They said two years ago that Yoshiko Goddardio is going to be a beast and that's happened
902
00:46:18,700 --> 00:46:19,700
so far.
903
00:46:19,700 --> 00:46:25,000
And for everyone to watch out for Luca 2.0, Luca Suchich, place for Red Bull Salzburg
904
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,720
right now, the guy is absolutely lights out.
905
00:46:27,720 --> 00:46:33,800
So, so going back to your question about the world cup and everyone calling us old, we're
906
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,360
going to have a third golden generation just around the corner.
907
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:41,000
It's not going to happen at this world cup, um, but we're going to be in good shape.
908
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:44,560
Uh, Kramaric looks like he's not getting the job done, but we're going to, we're going
909
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:49,880
to have another real striker, uh, with shimmy, another midfielder with Suchich.
910
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:52,840
We're going to have a world-class defender and Goddardio.
911
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,320
And then we have this guy, uh, Petar Musa.
912
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,440
Uh, he's in Portugal right now.
913
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,000
He scoring goals almost every week for the past three months.
914
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:04,640
He's been getting no love, but Dalic needs to bring him up for UEFA Nations games this
915
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:05,640
June.
916
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,080
Um, he might get picked up by Benfica this week.
917
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:12,560
Um, but it's, but it's a bright, bright future again.
918
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,960
So for everyone thinking, oh, we, we, we topped out in 2018, Nastina.
919
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:17,960
Yeah.
920
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:22,560
I mean, we definitely have another generation coming up and a lot of good young players,
921
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,000
but I mean, that sort of poses a question for this world cup.
922
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:29,720
Is there maybe a lack of experience between those players or something with chemistry?
923
00:47:29,720 --> 00:47:33,120
Maybe do you think that'll be a factor for the young players?
924
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,440
No, but they've, they've all played with the, Salsa's already been integrated.
925
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:38,640
Goddardio has already been integrated.
926
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:40,320
Like I said, we need to figure out striker position.
927
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:46,240
We need to figure out goalie, Modric and Dalic, I think finally are on the same page.
928
00:47:46,240 --> 00:47:52,400
Uh, you know, there's a lot of riffraff at Euro 2020 in the locker rooms between Brozovic
929
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:53,400
and Rebic.
930
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:56,040
That's a, that's a conversation for another day.
931
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:57,800
The locker room was split.
932
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,920
It's something I, you know, I heard a lot of rumblings internally from the HNS that,
933
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:04,720
you know, they, they tell me, don't worry, don't talk about it.
934
00:48:04,720 --> 00:48:09,000
So I, so I don't, but there's big problems inside the locker room during Euro 2020.
935
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:16,560
So the fact that we made it to extra time against Spain was, was great, but it's, it's,
936
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:20,480
I've talked to Dava Shukar before multiple times and taking politics and all that out
937
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:21,480
of it.
938
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:25,000
He's a, a golden boot winner.
939
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:27,880
He's arguably, he's, he's Croatia's best striker of all time.
940
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,320
One of the world's greatest strikers of all time.
941
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,640
And it goes, he goes, momentum's a real thing in a locker room.
942
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:38,760
Uh, he goes, you know, you have to believe that you really can win and it takes a little
943
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:40,880
bit of luck to win the tournament.
944
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:45,160
A lot of, a lot of these guys that you talk to, they say you need to have a little bit
945
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:46,360
of luck, whatever that means.
946
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,480
But you know, you have to have a call go this way.
947
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:53,760
You have to have a call go that way is all that chemistry stuff, all that will happen
948
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:54,760
later in the year.
949
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,280
You're, they're going to be hot or not going into the world cup and it's too early for
950
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:58,440
us to, to do that.
951
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:04,440
But we have the talent right now on this 24 man roster to win the world cup.
952
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:05,440
Absolutely.
953
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:06,440
Wow.
954
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:07,440
Yeah.
955
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,440
Well, I was going to ask you your prediction, but it sounds like I just got it.
956
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:10,440
Yeah.
957
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:11,440
They, they can win it.
958
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:15,400
Look, this is, they always say in sports, whoever they are, they, they say you got to
959
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,040
lose it before you can win it.
960
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:23,680
And you know, France lost the final of Euro 2016 on home soil to Portugal.
961
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:29,320
And then two years later, they win the world cup Croatians, I think not just players,
962
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:31,480
but the country go, we've been to the promise line.
963
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:32,560
We've been to the world cup final.
964
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:33,560
Why can't we do it again?
965
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:34,560
I think it's a, it's a thought.
966
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:36,760
It's a psychological piece.
967
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,680
And I was in Zadar the day of the world cup final.
968
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:41,680
I watched that forum.
969
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:50,480
I had to donate and, and you saw Croatian kids wearing Subacic jerseys, Brozovic jerseys,
970
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,960
Modric of course, but talking to little kids, they're like, Oh my God, we're in the world
971
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:57,880
cup final, like 10, 12, 14 year old kids.
972
00:49:57,880 --> 00:49:59,920
Because now we know it's possible.
973
00:49:59,920 --> 00:50:03,320
And I think once you know it's possible, you can do it again.
974
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:07,600
So with Modric's leadership, with knowing that we were just there, knowing that it's
975
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:13,080
attainable, knowing that the Vatan anywhere 90 minutes away from the, from the world cup
976
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:17,160
lifting of the trophy in Moscow, we know it's possible.
977
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:20,280
Maybe, maybe 10 years ago, we go, ah, it's, we're not Germany.
978
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:21,280
We're not Brazil.
979
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:22,280
We're not Argentina.
980
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:23,280
We can't win it.
981
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:24,280
Now we know that.
982
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:29,080
And I think belief, you know, they say Croatians have the strongest faith in the world.
983
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,960
They say Croatians are more Catholic than the Pope.
984
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:34,240
Now we know, we know it's possible.
985
00:50:34,240 --> 00:50:37,880
And this is, this is absolutely going to be Modric's last world cup para.
986
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:40,020
We have a good, good group.
987
00:50:40,020 --> 00:50:41,200
We have the talent.
988
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:43,520
We just need to put the jigsaw puzzles together.
989
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:44,520
Yeah.
990
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:49,040
I mean, that would be such a sweet redemption story, you know, to come back and win it this
991
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:50,040
year.
992
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:51,040
It's possible.
993
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:52,040
It's possible, my friend.
994
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:55,760
I want to ask, do you think there's anything, I mean, I think in Russia, we were able to
995
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:57,480
get a pretty good fan base out there.
996
00:50:57,480 --> 00:50:59,360
Do you think that'll be tougher in Qatar?
997
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:03,680
Do you think that'll play a factor at all or not really?
998
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:04,680
That's a good question.
999
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:08,640
Obviously going to Russia, it's a little, little bit easier from, from Croatia.
1000
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:12,480
It's only two, three hour flight.
1001
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:18,160
But what I learned, what I learned is in the last tournament I was out, that Croatia was
1002
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:23,080
in, I was at, I was in Bordeaux for the France, Spain game in 2016 is a lot of Croatians
1003
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:27,400
from the, from the, the Movena aren't able to travel for the game.
1004
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:30,680
Like people from Zagreb and Split, it's expensive.
1005
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:31,680
It's an economy thing.
1006
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,760
It's just not in their, you know, it's not, it's not part of their, their bank accounts.
1007
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:36,760
It's almost impossible.
1008
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:39,240
I met one guy from Zagreb said, I want to come to the Spain game.
1009
00:51:39,240 --> 00:51:44,880
I sold my car and I flew out to Bordeaux where I met, I met, you know, most of the people
1010
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,400
and that just how it is, is from the diaspora.
1011
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:52,920
I met a lot of from New Zealand, from Australia, US, Canada, Switzerland, Germany.
1012
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:58,120
Those are most of the people that, that, that travel and which was awesome meeting all of
1013
00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:00,200
them.
1014
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:05,960
But I think people will go from Croatia because we're riding hot and we're just coming off,
1015
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:08,560
you know, a World Cup final.
1016
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,040
If they want to go, they're going to go, they're going to find a way.
1017
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:13,080
I don't know how I'm going to line it up.
1018
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,120
You know, it's literally on the other side of the planet, but it's not the sexiest World
1019
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:18,120
Cup.
1020
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:21,000
It's in Qatar, you know, Middle East just isn't the sexiest World Cup.
1021
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:26,560
You'd rather be in, you know, in England or in Germany or in Brazil or in Argentina.
1022
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:28,960
That's a great question, Sanco.
1023
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:30,200
We will see.
1024
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:34,280
But the thing is, you guess where the World Cup is in four years.
1025
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:37,320
It's in the US and in Canada, which is going to be super sexy.
1026
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:40,480
So I don't know if people are going to wait or if Croatia is going to say, this is Luca
1027
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:41,800
Mollich's last World Cup.
1028
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:42,800
Let's see what happens.
1029
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:45,000
So I don't have an answer for you on that one.
1030
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:46,000
Hmm.
1031
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:47,000
Yeah.
1032
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:48,000
Next World Cup is going to be crazy.
1033
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:49,000
US and Canada.
1034
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:50,000
Yeah.
1035
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:51,000
You won't be in Zagreb.
1036
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:52,000
I guarantee it.
1037
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:53,000
Yeah.
1038
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:54,000
I'll have to come back for that for sure.
1039
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:55,480
But I think, I mean, this World Cup this year, it's good.
1040
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:57,200
I think it's good for the diaspora.
1041
00:52:57,200 --> 00:52:59,960
I mean, you have the US finally qualified.
1042
00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:04,360
You have Canada, Australia, I mean, Argentina, you know, in South America, I know there's
1043
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:06,360
a lot of diaspora there.
1044
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:08,560
Well, I mean, where else?
1045
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:10,960
New Zealand, did they qualify or not?
1046
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:12,480
No, New Zealand's in a playoff.
1047
00:53:12,480 --> 00:53:14,840
They haven't qualified yet.
1048
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:16,360
Australia's in a playoff.
1049
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:19,800
There's a couple teams that still got a, that aren't in the final feed.
1050
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:23,160
But I think the US one is going to be sexy.
1051
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:28,480
Who from Australia and Europe doesn't want to come to, you know, party in LA or New York
1052
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:31,560
or Chicago for a World Cup?
1053
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:34,240
You know, it's going to be a triple vacation for everyone.
1054
00:53:34,240 --> 00:53:39,080
Like if Croatia plays in, I don't care if they play in Mexico, because it's in Mexico,
1055
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:42,520
Canada, US, like we're going and we're going to go heavy.
1056
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:45,480
I think, you know, how many Canadian Croisians are there?
1057
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:47,000
How many American Croisians are there?
1058
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:49,680
I'm sure the Aussies will come up because it's going to be their winter time.
1059
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:53,240
Anyway, I think that's going to be an ultimate party in four years in North America.
1060
00:53:53,240 --> 00:53:56,440
Man, I'm getting the chills just thinking about how crazy that's going to be.
1061
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:58,040
Get your livers ready.
1062
00:53:58,040 --> 00:53:59,040
Yeah.
1063
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,520
But I mean, before that, we got this one in Qatar.
1064
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:06,720
I probably won't be able to make it out there, but you know, for sure, be watching in somewhere,
1065
00:54:06,720 --> 00:54:09,800
some hall, maybe in the tour of Bonilla.
1066
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:10,800
We'll make it happen.
1067
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:11,800
We still have time.
1068
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:12,800
We'll make it happen.
1069
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:13,800
Yeah.
1070
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:14,800
You never know.
1071
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:15,800
You never know.
1072
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:19,720
I think we're coming on the podcast here, had a lot to talk about, I'm going to have
1073
00:54:19,720 --> 00:54:20,720
to have you on another time.
1074
00:54:20,720 --> 00:54:24,280
You know, we're going to have to just talk about these dedicated, you know, topics because
1075
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:26,640
I know we can go for hours and hours about this.
1076
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:32,280
I wanted to talk about the Rebic and Dalit a little bit, but you know, you, you ask that
1077
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:33,800
at least for this episode.
1078
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,760
But yeah, definitely there's a lot to talk about, you know,
1079
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:38,880
Croatian hotheads, Croatian hotheads.
1080
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:41,160
We all, we all have them in our families.
1081
00:54:41,160 --> 00:54:43,960
That's our Rebic on the team and it doesn't look like he's coming back.
1082
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:44,960
Yeah.
1083
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:45,960
We all have them.
1084
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,560
And if you don't, then that means you're the hothead.
1085
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:49,560
Exactly.
1086
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:50,560
Exactly.
1087
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:51,560
But yeah, definitely a lot to cover.
1088
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:53,760
And I mean, Croatiansports.com, you guys are great.
1089
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:55,600
I love what you've done over there.
1090
00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:58,880
I can't, I don't know how long we've been following you ever since I can remember, you
1091
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:03,600
know, ever since I first started getting in the involved in the Croatian community down
1092
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:04,600
in LA.
1093
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:09,280
But, you know, I get all my news from you guys, all my sports news, especially all my soccer
1094
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:10,960
or World Cup news.
1095
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:13,480
So I mean, you guys keep up the good work.
1096
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:17,400
That's what I like to hear Stonko and a big, big props and a big thank you to you for,
1097
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:21,000
for carrying the Croatian flag, especially for the DOS put out there in Zagreb.
1098
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:25,320
I know you're just starting out on this podcast and I know how hard it is, but keep plugging
1099
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:26,320
away.
1100
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:27,320
I'm going to plug you.
1101
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:28,520
I'm going to share all this with you.
1102
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:29,880
I love, love, love what you're doing.
1103
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:32,440
I see you in Croatia week every week.
1104
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:36,920
So, so big props to you and, and can't wait to collaborate in the future and do this
1105
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:40,120
again.
1106
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,600
That's it for today's episode of the All Things Croatia podcast.
1107
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:46,000
Thanks for tuning in and I hope you all enjoyed it.
1108
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:50,040
You can subscribe to the Patreon and check out the All Things Croatia Instagram page
1109
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:51,600
to stay updated.
1110
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:56,080
Feel free to reach out to me with any questions, tips or ideas and make sure to tune back into
1111
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:57,600
the next episode.
1112
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:10,760
Thanks again and vide mosten.