Full name: Mateo Kovacic

Country: Croatia

Club: Inter Milan

Position: Midfield

 

Profile

From an Irish perspective, it is frustrating to see a country with a similar sized population like Croatia producing technically-gifted playmaking midfielders like Robert Prosinecki, Luka Modric and Mateo Kovacic in consecutive generations.

A central midfielder of incredible vision and passing ability, one only needs to think of his trio of assists for Inter Milan against Lazio at the tail end of the Serie A season to know what Kovacic is capable of.

Austrian-born, Kovacic has been at Inter since joining in January 2013 and has generally filled a deep-lying midfield role often in a central trio. However the composed playmaker is capable of playing further forward as he does for Croatia.

Key Stats

Kovacic has one of the best passing accuracy rates in Europe, with 90 per cent of his attempts in Serie A reaching their intended target.

According to Squawka, 55 per cent of those passes have been forward passes.

 

This Summer

The 2011 Croatian Football Hope of the Year has earned eight caps thus far and is knocking on the door of the starting XI. The 20-year-old started a recent friendly against Switzerland and also played from the beginning in the playoff win over Iceland.

Interestingly he was fielded as an attacking midfielder in the same starting line up as Sevilla’s Ivan Rakitic and Modric – a very attacking selection. Kovacic set up the second goal in that 2 – 0 win.