October 8, 2021 - In this year's Next Generation, a list in which The Guardian carefully selects the 60 best prospects in world football, a Croatian player has stood out and it is 17-year-old Hajduk Split midfielder Marko Brkljača.

Every year since 2014, the British medium The Guardian publishes a list called Next Generation, in which 60 young players in world football stand out for their precocious and surprising performance in the minor divisions of their clubs and national teams. Some of them even add minutes with the first team, but the main objective of the list is to recognize the main promises in football.

The list is compiled by a diverse number of journalists and soccer analysts, who constantly follow the major soccer leagues not only in Europe but all over the world. Although any type of list can be subjective in nature, it is true that many of the players who have appeared on these lists in the past are today part of the football elite, such as:

• Ousmane Dembélé - Barcelona (Next Generation 2014)
• Luka Jović - Real Madrid (2014)
• Dayot Upamecano - Bayer München (2015)
• Manuel Locatelli - Juventus (2015)
• Dani Olmo - RB Leipzig (2015)
• Christian Pulisic - Chelsea (2015)
• Federico Valverde - Real Madrid (2015)
• Kai Havertz - Chelsea (2016)
• Gianluigi Donnarumma - PSG (2016)
• Matthijs de Ligt - Juventus (2016)
• Vinicius Júnior - Real Madrid (2017)
• Alphonso Davies - Bayern München (2017)
• Jadon Sancho - Manchester United (2017)
• Erling Haaland - Borussia Dortmund (2017)
• Ferrán Torres - Manchester City (2017)
• Mason Greenwood - Manchester United (2018)
• Eric García - Barcelona (2018)
• Eduardo Camavinga - Real Madrid (2019)
• Ansu Fati - Barcelona (2019)
• Pedri - Barcelona (2019)
• Jamal Musiala - Bayern München (2020)

Many Croatian players who are now part of the national team also appeared in previous editions, such as Nikola Vlašić (2014) and Josko Gvardiol (2019). Other Croatian players who were selected for the Next Generation roster were Ante Ćorić (2014), Davor Lovren (2015), Michele Sego and David Colina (2017), Antonio Marin and Mario Vušković (2018); and Bartol Barišić, Ivan Ćubelić, and Tomislav Duvnjak (2020).

This year, The Guardian has placed a Croatian player on the list, the Hajduk Split midfielder Marko Brkljača, born in Zadar on July 15th, 2004. This is how journalist Aleksandar Holiga describes Brkljača on The Guardian's Next Generation 2021 list:

''A left-footed box-to-box midfielder in the vein of, say, Georginio Wijnaldum. Regarded the biggest national prospect of his generation by some distance, Marko Brkljača attracts immediate attention with a smooth first touch and impressive physical capacity. His coaches particularly praise his ability to withstand challenges against older and bigger opponents, but also his sense for timing runs from behind, which regularly gets him into goal-scoring positions. Juventus tried to sign him last winter but they are not the only big club interested. Hajduk will want him to establish himself in the first team before considering any offers and he will get his chance soon enough – he made his senior debut in a cup game in September''.

The 17-year-old Croatian midfielder has yet to make his senior debut but continues to add minutes for the Hajduk U-19 team, where he is currently playing the UEFA Youth League, and the Croatian U19's. In a Croatian national team where the absence of the great Luka Modric will be felt in the coming years, it would not be bad for another Zadar-born midfielder to emerge as his successor. Let's hope so!

The Croatian national team plays today against Cyprus for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers at 8:45 p.m. Stay tuned for updates from Total Croatia News.

To follow the latest sports news in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

To learn more about sport in Croatia, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 8 Oct 2021 - The social enterprise Da-Mogu has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help persons with low employability, notably those most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, find employment, specifically by knitting, "which empowers and lifts spirits."

Since the launching of this initiative, 19 knitters have joined to design caps and launch production.

The crowdfunding campaign is aimed at creating conditions for their financing by raising HRK 85,000 (€11,333), which would secure the first jobs over a period of one year.

The founder and director of the Da-Mogu social enterprise is Tatjana Aćimović, a professional project manager and theatre and film producer who wanted to help the persons most affected by the pandemic - the disabled, the elderly and young people looking for their first job - as well as launch the production of high-quality knitwear and promote needlework, notably in times of crisis.

"We want to secure jobs for persons with low employability, not only for the next 12 months, for which we are now raising money, but for a longer period of time. More precisely, we want to establish a sustainable system of operation and employment," members of the Da-Mogu team said.

The campaign to raise money for the employment of knitters is available at the Croinvest.eu website until the beginning of November, when the social enterprise will start selling Merino wool caps online.

In the first several days since its launching, the campaign has been supported by close to 70 donors.

For the time being the social enterprise brings together knitters from Zagreb and its environs, and there are plans to expand the business to other parts of Croatia as well.

For more news, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 7 Oct 2021 - The rectors of six universities from coastal cities which are members of the European University of the Seas (SEA-EU) alliance met in Split on Thursday to discuss ways of advancing their cooperation.

Established in 2020, the SEA-EU alliance comprises six universities - the University of Cádiz (Spain), Université de Bretagne Occidentale in Brest (France), the University of Kiel (Germany), the University of Gdańsk (Poland), the University of Malta (Malta), and the University of Split (Croatia).

The Rector of the University of Split, Dragan Ljutić, said that the purpose of the meeting was to launch a joint programme of studies and ensure the acquisition of a joint diploma.

"'Six universities, one diploma', that is our common denominator because we are all located by the sea. These are maritime universities and the education of our students is primarily related to the sea. Each of these universities is linked to the sea," Ljutić said.

He said that the six universities were expanding their influence and that many universities from cities by the sea, not just the Mediterranean, but the Atlantic and beyond, wanted to join this alliance.

The Mayor of Split, Ivica Puljak, said that this meeting was very important for the city because the modern scientific world would be characterised by the unification of and cooperation between universities.

For more news, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 8 Oct 2021 - The Voice of Entrepreneurs association and an association of owners of night clubs and bars have called for lifting restrictions on the work of such establishments, which is now limited to midnight, noting that many operate illegally despite the restrictions on working hours.

The two associations warn that the national COVID-19 response team "has been insisting, without real and science-based arguments, on the decision to restrict the work of night clubs and bars until midnight" while some coffee shops and restaurants are turning into night clubs despite epidemiological restrictions and operate illegally.

"We have been witnessing media reports about illegal parties in Zagreb while many indoor clubs and bars remain closed. The ban on the work of night clubs and bars is the reason why thousands of young people travel to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia as there are no such restrictions there, prices and VAT are lower, and there is no tax on consumption. There are no restrictions on the work of night clubs and their visitors do not have to show COVID-19 certificates or get tested," the two associations say.

They call on the national COVID-19 response team to lift the current restrictions on night clubs as they encourage illegal work while young people are still not getting vaccinated at a desired rate.

For more on business, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 8 Oct 2021 - Visits to prison inmates and persons in custody, notably those at Zagreb's Remetinec prison, have not been allowed over the past month due to coronavirus having entered the prison system, the Večernji List daily of Friday reports.

Inmates have also not been able to exercise their right to spend some weekends outside the prison system.

The Justice and Public Administration Ministry says the Prison Administration Department has been implementing a set of measures since the start of the pandemic to prevent the virus from entering and spreading in the prison system.

Under one of those measures, before prisons were last closed for visitors, only visitors who were vaccinated, had recovered from COVID-19 or had a negative test not older than 48 hours were allowed to make a visit.

Nonetheless, this did not prevent the virus from entering the system and according to this week's data from the ministry, 23 inmates and persons in custody at Remetinec are infected while 110 are self-isolating.

In the entire prison system, 27 inmates are infected and 127 are in self-isolation.

The ministry notes that no employees at Remetinec are infected or in self-isolation.

Since the start of the pandemic, 2,321 inmates and 1,598 employees in the prison system have been vaccinated.

The exact number of persons tested and infected in the prison system will be known once the report on the state and work of penitentiaries, prisons and correctional facilities for 2021 is released, the daily says.

For more news,CLICK HERE.

October the 8th, 2021 - The five-year-old Croatian startup Memgraph has received a handsome amount in the form of an investment from no less than Microsoft's M12 fund, as well as from other very well known and highly respected funds.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the promising Croatian startup Memgraph recently announced that they received a seed investment of an enormous 9.34 million US dollars, in which Microsoft's investment fund M12, Heavybit Industries, In-Q-Tel, Counterview Capital, ID4 Ventures and Mundi Ventures all readily participated.

The company's executive director, Dominik Tomicevic and technical director Marko Budiselic founded Memgraph just five years ago, and the idea was born out of the idea to provide significant analytical capabilities aided by graph databases. Since then, this Croatian startup has well and truly blossomed into something which is both recognisable and admired.

They then introduced the new Memgraph 2.0, a platform that allows developers, engineers, professionals and large companies and enthusiasts to programme their applications based on data flows and graphs in mere minutes. The Memgraph Community Edition (MCE) is available with a BSL (Business Source License) which means code openness in most situations, from personal to commercial.

They say from Memgraph that the money from this fantastic investment will be used for new development activities, the expansion of the development team and the community of developers and enthusiasts.

Although they employ people throughout Europe and have engineers in both Greece and the Netherlands, Memgraph's main hub will still remain in the Republic of Croatia.

''The goal of this round of funding is to expand and further strengthen our team. Given the fact that our higher priority is the development of Cloud products, we'll primarily employ Frontend (Angular) and Backend (NodeJS) engineers,'' explained Marko Srsan, Memgraph's chief operating officer.

For more on Croatian companies, startups, doing business and investments in Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated Made in Croatia and business sections.

October the 8th, 2021 - There have been many issues (for some) about the introduction of mandatory Croatian covid passes for entry into hospitals and other such facilities. Even medical and other staff working in Croatian healthcare institutions as well as in the social care system must now have either Croatian covid passes, or accept that they need very frequent testing, which will eventually need to be paid for out of their own pockets.

Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, who has, since the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic, been much more associated with the National Civil Protection Directorate than with the police, has revealed some quite significant changes in this regard.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, at the recent suggestion of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ), the decisions regarding the obligation to test people for the presence of the novel coronavirus in the healthcare system and social welfare systems were changed, according to Minister Bozinovic.

The period of validity of Croatian covid passes, which have caused a lot off fuss and by which certain categories of persons can prove that they have overcome the illness or are fully vaccinated has been extended from nine to twelve months. The move will more than likely result in a sigh of relief for all those who are either fully vaccinated or have proof of their recovery from the disease, as they will now be able to put this issue to the backs of their minds for an entire year.

Those who have very recently tested negative for the disease, are fully vaccinated against it, and those who have contracted coronavirus in the past and can prove it with a positive test result from that time, can all obtain Croatian covid passes.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.

October the 8th, 2021 - The marketing plan manager for the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ/CNTB) has finally been revealed, as have the amounts of money involved.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, as confirmed by the Croatian National Tourist Board itself, for the development of the "Strategic Marketing and Operational Plan of Croatian Tourism for the period 2022 to 2026", the Croatian National Tourist Board Assembly selected a community of bidders consisting of: the Spanish company T.H.R. Tourism, hotel and recreation accessories, S.A. and Horwath and Horwath Consulting Zagreb d.o.o. and Millennium Promotion d.o.o.

The offered price amounts to a massive 3,480,000.00 kuna without VAT, and the Croatian National Tourist Board should start concluding a contract on the implementation of the project with the selected bidder, in accordance with the offered price from the tender.

The Croatian Ministry of Tourism reported on Monday that the aforementioned CNTB Assembly had adopted a decision on the selection of bidders for the development of a strategic marketing and operational plan for Croatian tourism for the period 2022-2026, and that the decision had been made as long as nine months after the tender was initially announced.

As explained from the Croatian National Tourist Board, the deadline for the implementation of the project is now 200 calendar days, and that ticking clock is set to begin counting down on the day of signing the contract.

''The Development of the Strategic Marketing and Operational Plan of Croatian Tourism, among other things, will require in-depth analysis of key foreign tourism markets and consumer segments, meaning an extensive analytical basis, the development of strategic framework, operational marketing activities and implementation plans, and the redefining the brand of Croatian tourism through the development of guidelines for a new umbrella communication concept.

In addition to the above, the "Strategy for the Development of Sustainable Tourism until 2030", which is currently being drafted, will be one of the key bases for the development of the "Strategic Marketing and Operational Plan of Croatian Tourism for the period 2022 to 2026", within the currently defined settings, as well as the settings that will be articulated in the final stages of drafting this national development document until its final adoption, as was explained from the Croatian National Tourist Board.

For more, make sure to check out our business section.