Nikola Krstovic the 2022/2023 competitive season will end with international friendlies, testing Belgium’s (tonight) and Georgia’s (Sunday in Tblisi) ambitions for Euro 2024. In Germany, the Balkan national team, squeezed in the qualifying group by Serbia, Hungary and Czechia, will not be there. It would have been the icing on the cake for Krstovic’s year, who landed in Serie A thanks to Lecce’s investment (3.9 million plus 0.5 million bonuses in the event of a transfer) after his 26 goals in the Slovakian championship and qualifying for the European cups with Dunajska Streda, with whom for the record he scored another two goals also in 2023/2024.
Krstovic’s start was lightning-fast, starting with the goal 98 seconds after entering the pitch in Fiorentina-Lecce 2-2. Even at Via del Mare, the falling in love broke out immediately: header, ball behind Ochoa and Salernitana joke. The penalty scored a Monza it was then the third pearl in three games. The performance of the player who also played for Red Star (the Serbs signed him from Zeta Golubovci in Montenegro) has physiologically passed even if the tap-in with Sassuolo in an October that he knew was still summer brought the goals to four.
When we talk about an attacker, we know, we immediately reach for an abacus and a calculator to understand his ability to throw it in. Krstovic, officially dry from Lecce-Udinese 1-1 (8th) to Genoa-Lecce (22nd) it was indeed difficult to experience especially in terms of how much security a goal gives to an attacker, but at the same time Krstovic, certainly more studied and teased by the opposing defenders, was able to balance his technical exuberance with the ability to work well with his back to goal and ball and chain going to get the ball even on your own trocar. In the first rumors of the transfer market in June, Genoa showed interest in him together with Fiorentina. It’s not a casuality.
For a striker who has gone on to lord it over a mid-level league, fighting to remain in the tactics and mastery of the Italian Serie A is a leap into the unknown. In addition to the numbers, the performance of Krstovic, who alternated with Piccoli in the relay arranged by D’Aversa before the winning duo designed by Gotti, fell short of positive performances. In spring, the flowers of work bloomed and, after the assist to Piccoli for Sassuolo’s 0-3, the point of no return of the year, Krstovic made the Via del Mare dance with joy with the Eurogol in the 89th minute of Lecce-Monza 1-1. The close at the far post in Cagliari (another 1-1) was then the last goal and the stills that remain of the year of the Montenegrin rally car enthusiast are of celebration: in the city during the official salvation in front of the TV and at the start del Mare after Lecce-Atalanta. The best is yet to come, but watch out for the infinite ways of the transfer market.
