And I really think that Gvardiol needs to be the best young player and the best defender of this World Cup. OK, maybe the best defender title can wait for a few more years, but he has to be given the best young player award!
While I agree that Gvardiol deserves to win FIFA Young Player Award award (any doubt about that is imho removed after his performance today) I don't think that there is an award for the best defender. I expect him to finish in the team of the tournament though.
I'm not sure he would be considered for the overall best defender of the tournament, as there are a few defenders who are slightly ahead of him, despite him being outstanding for someone of his age and being one of the hottest defenders in Europe.
Even though there is no award for the best defender, I am curious to hear who are those few defenders that had better tournament than him? The way he played is even more impressive when you take into consideration the way our team played this tournament, and how busy he was every single game. In 6 out of 7 games we played he was either the best or among 2-3 best players in our team and I don't remember any of our defenders playing this good in any of our previous world cups. Not even Dejan Lovren when he was chosen into 2018 team of the tournament.
I believe Chelsea and Leipzig verbally agreed that the transfer will take place after the current campaign. He'll blend in well with the EPL.
Unless they signed the contract, I don't think that they will get him. Not after the tournament that he has and definitely not for amount of money agreed before WC. Rumour in Croatia is that Man City and Real are frontrunners and I would rather see him in either of those two than in Chelsea.
I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I see our starting 11 before the game started, especially seeing Perisic as LB ( position similar to the one he is playing for last few years in Inter and now in Tottenham) and Orsic ar LW, as that meant Dalic decided to completely change the tactic and showed that we are not one dimensional team like Greece was back in 2004 for example (btw I highly respect what Greece achieved) and that we can play attractive and attacking football if we want to, and still be pretty good at it despite the lack of a world class forward.
Once again I was worried about the referee, and for a good reason given the fact that we should have been awarded penalty for that foul on Gvardiol, but luckily that mistake didn't had effect on the final result. In the end, 3rd sport well deserved, we were the better team today.
edit: exclusive photo from VAR room that explains why they didn't see foul on Gvardiol