“I don’t want to talk about individuals, we were a team.”
Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic gave the standard platitudinal response after his side’s 0-0 draw against Belgium secured their place in the knockout rounds of the World Cup. But then he couldn’t help himself.
“Josko Gvardiol is the best centre-back in the world. To play this maturely, it’s amazing. The way he plays, with the elegance he carries the ball.”
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Croatia are in the World Cup semi-finals having only been in the lead for 46 minutes in the tournament. Their collective fortitude and astonishing consistency in penalty shootouts are the most frequently cited explanations, but to get away with that you also need an extremely good defence.
They certainly have that. They have conceded just three goals in their five games: 14 teams let in more than that in the group stage alone.
Their defensive record is already better than the excellent one that took them to the final four years ago, and while that isn’t down to one man, the presence of Gvardiol has added beef to their back line.
Gvardiol had yet to make a senior appearance four years ago, as his team-mates were making their unlikely way to the final in Russia. But after making his debut for Dinamo Zagreb as a 17-year-old, then being rapidly snapped up by RB Leipzig, Gvardiol is now one of the most sought-after defenders in the world and has been one of the standout performers in Qatar. And he’s just 20.
The first thing you notice about Gvardiol is his size. He’s listed at just a little under 6ft 1in (185cm) but his imposing build — somewhere between Khal Drogo and a bouncer in a rough part of town — makes him seem bigger. It’s enough to make you feel sorry for Willi Orban, the Leipzig team-mate he collided with just before the tournament — Gvardiol’s been wearing a mask to protect the resulting broken nose.
Read more: Croatia beat Morocco 2-1 to take 3rd place at the 2022 World Cup
But then, after watching him for a short while, it’s the composure and the lightness of touch that stands out, things that initially seem incongruous next to his physical gifts. He’s not so much an iron fist in a velvet glove, more a colossal sledgehammer wrapped in a 15-tog duvet.
“He plays like he has 100 caps for the national team,” said Croatia team-mate Borna Barisic after their last-16 win over Japan. “But that is what happens when God gives you everything.”
There have been a few examples of that clarity of thought at the World Cup, but perhaps the best came against Brazil. Borna Sosa has the ball deep on the Croatian left, and gives Gvardiol what can only be described as a hospital pass, underhit with Richarlison and Danilo rapidly closing him down.
Panic would have been a perfectly understandable reaction, but Gvardiol nips in and takes the ball from both Brazilians at the same time…
… then bursts between them and starts an attack by moving into the space left by Danilo, who by this time has been left on his behind.
He’s the perfect modern centre-back — if a big club’s recruitment department were able to grow a defender in a lab, this is what they would come up with.
“I first saw him playing for the second team when he was just 17,” Nenad Bjelica, the manager who gave Gvardiol his senior debut for Dinamo Zagreb, tells The Athletic. “He was playing with guys who were 19, 20, 21, and my first impression was just of pure surprise at his body language and how he didn’t have any fear to play the ball confidently.
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“He already looked like an experienced player. That is what is bewildering about him. In that sense, he is the same now as he was at 17.
“Physically he was ready to play for the first team but we waited a little bit. We wanted to give him time and make some mistakes.”
Igor Biscan, Croatia’s under-21s coach, concurs: “I knew straight away when I saw him that he was a special player. We had some really big talents, and players ahead of their age groups, but we never had something like him.”
Gvardiol, it goes without saying, is superb at the things you would expect a top-class centre-back to be superb at. His most eye-catching moment in this tournament came against Belgium in stoppage time. Timothy Castagne crossed from the left…
… and the ball bounced into the path of Romelu Lukaku. This was the game in which the Belgium forward appeared to be having some sort of real-time existential crisis, spurning chances left and right, but his eyes lit up at this one. Five yards out, just the keeper to beat, he only needed to make semi-decent contact and Belgium were through, Croatia out.
But as he pulled back his foot, ready to complete the formalities, a left foot snaked around his standing leg and flicked the ball away. It was an extraordinary piece of defending at exactly the time his team needed it: Gvardiol’s last-ditch save kept his country in the tournament.
But it is other things that really set him apart. Against Japan, he was given another tricky task when Dejan Lovren squared a careless pass to him near the Croatia goal, with forward Daizen Maeda looming, then charging towards Gvardiol.
But again, rather than panicking, Gvardiol controlled the ball and spun around in one smooth movement, buying himself space to move the ball out of trouble. But he didn’t just clear his lines…
Seemingly without really looking up, he pinged an extraordinary 60-yard pass into the path of Bruno Petkovic, putting the forward clear on goal with a chance he should have done better with.
How Gvardiol saw the pass, never mind executed it, from the position he was in, is a mystery. He just seems to know these things. Take another example, against Morocco: Romain Saiss has the ball just inside his own half and is assessing his options, one of which is a forward pass to Abde Ezzalzouli.
But Gvardiol is already on the move, and appears to have seen what Saiss is going to do well before the former Wolves defender has started to do it. The consequence is that when Saiss plays the pass, Gvardiol nips ahead of Ezzalzouli and whips the ball from under his nose, like a mischievous seagull swooping down to steal a tourist’s burger at the beach.
“Josko has a really clear head,” says Bjelica. No kidding.
“No matter the moment, he plays with such composure,” says Biscan. “It’s very rare to find someone like that.”
There are obviously still a few flaws in his game. He does have a tendency to go in hard and quickly, which when it comes off looks decisive and proactive, but when it doesn’t can appear reckless. Against Brazil, there was one occasion when he rushed into a challenge against Richarlison, who saw the young Croat coming a mile off, backed in then rolled him easily and fed Neymar, who should have scored.
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But all the things that aren’t perfect right now are things that can be improved. The bun fight for his signature has already started: he almost moved to Chelsea last summer and recent reports have linked him with Manchester United, but the queue of those who would be keen on him includes most big clubs in Europe. After his performances at the World Cup, Leipzig can probably start the bidding at somewhere north of €80million and see how far it rises.
Biscan, though, preaches caution. “I believe maybe it’s too early to go (to the Premier League) now. Take Kalidou Koulibaly — he’s regarded as one of the best defenders in the world, but he’s still trying to find his way in the Premier League. It’s a completely different environment. He’s still a little bit too young for me to be sure he’s an instant success. Maybe he needs to wait for a year or so to be ready.”
A move is inevitable at some stage, particularly as this World Cup has confirmed what most observers already knew about him.
“He is destined to be the record Croatian sale,” says Bjelica. “Usually that is a striker or midfielder, so it shows just how talented he really is.”
Before all that though, is a World Cup semi-final. The way that side of the draw has panned out, it feels like the perfect narrative for the tournament is for Lionel Messi to finally win the World Cup. In his way stands a man-sized boy who many think will be one of the best defenders in the world for at least the next decade.
“I don’t know if he realises how good he is or what he’s achieving right now,” adds Bjelica. “It’s still a game for him, not work.”
(Top image: designed by Samuel Richardson; photograph via Getty Images)