Lately, in the Croatian media, there has been a lot of talk about whether Kristijan Lovrić deserves a call-up to the national team, and Zlatko Dalić decided to heed some of those calls and add him to the squad, largely because Ivan Perišić was not allowed to leave Italy due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Lovrić is among the top performers and goalscorers in the Croatian league for the second season in a row, and his performances have played a big part in HNK Gorica sitting in third place in the table at the moment. This scout report will have a tactical analysis of Lovrićs attributes and playing style.
In the winter transfer window, Lovrić was targeted by Siniša Mihajlović, the Serbian head coach who is managing Serie A side Bologna, but the fee offered was not good enough for Gorica. He has also been a transfer target for Champions League participants Dynamo Kyiv and Celtic last summer. In this analysis, we will take a detailed look at his qualities and why he has caught the eye of clubs in bigger leagues.
Player overview
Kristijan Lovrić is a 25-year-old winger, valued at 5.5 million euros by Transfermarkt. He is 186 cm tall, and is predominantly right-footed. In the Gorica system, he is used as a left-winger in their preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. Lovrić is a difference-maker for Gorica and it is not rare for him to decide matches through his individual quality.
In the image above we can see how Lovrić looks compared to the other wingers and centre-forwards in 1.HNL who have played at least 500 minutes this season. We can see on his heatmap that he is usually on the left side of the pitch, especially in the left half-space which can be called the “Lovrić zone”.
