Twice Joško Gvardiol was nearly lost to football. Contrary to common belief, however, the hirsute Leipzig defender never considered throwing in the sport to work with his father, Tihomir, a fishmonger at Zagreb’s Dolac Market. “When I’d finish school and training, on my way home I’d stop by to see him at the market,” says Gvardiol. “I also went fishing with him once – and once was more than enough for me.”
Fortunately Gvardiol wasn’t so easily discouraged where football was concerned. Aged seven he dissolved into tears at his first training session with NK Trešnjevka, the small club where Tihomir finished his own amateur career. “Because I was little there was always nervousness seeing new kids around; I wasn’t really comfortable with it,” says Gvardiol. He overcame his bashfulness to excel and join Dinamo Zagreb within 18 months. Aged “16 or 17” Gvardiol was “on the bench in the Dinamo youth teams and thinking of leaving football”.
The idea was fleeting and, hearing Gvardiol explain Tihomir’s ongoing commitment to rising daily at 4am for his market shift, unlikely to take hold. “It’s difficult for people who have gained a work ethic to just abandon something they’ve been bound to throughout their career,” he says.
Gvardiol grew up with his parents and older sisters Franka and Lorena, on the fifth floor of a Zagreb skyscraper. Still in the infancy of his football career, he is expected to scale rarefied heights. “He will touch the stars – he will be elite,” said Damir Krznar, a Dinamo Zagreb academy director when Gvardiol was developing, and first-team head coach when the teenage player figured prominently in Dinamo’s 2020/21 Croatian double-winning campaign. Gvardiol was so highly rated that there were whispers he’d be the best player the club had ever produced – and this the same club where Luka Modrić started out, no less.
Dalibor Poldrugač, another coach from the club’s academy and the man who first alighted on the idea of switching Gvardiol from full-back to centre-half, was more forthright back in 2019. “If he’s not a regular for Croatia’s senior squad by the time he’s 20, someone should go to jail for it,” he said. Happily there was no requirement for any collars to be felt: Gvardiol started all four of his country’s matches at EURO 2020.
He celebrated turning 20 in January last year by lifting the ball over Wolfsburg keeper Koen Casteels for a goal any predatory centre-forward would gladly call their own. A Twitter account dedicated to football wonderkids noted that Gvardiol added five interceptions and eight ball recoveries to complete a dynamic birthday performance. “I like to have the ball at my feet,” he says. “But I also like to be more involved in the game if the match and the opponent allow.”
Gvardiol watched from the bench when Leipzig lost their opening two Champions League group fixtures this season. Following his restoration to the starting XI, the Germans won their four remaining matches, Gvardiol scoring in a rip-roaring victory over defending champions Real Madrid and aiding clean-sheet efforts in handsome wins over Celtic and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Twice Joško Gvardiol was nearly lost to football. Contrary to common belief, however, the hirsute Leipzig defender never considered throwing in the sport to work with his father, Tihomir, a fishmonger at Zagreb’s Dolac Market. “When I’d finish school and training, on my way home I’d stop by to see him at the market,” says Gvardiol. “I also went fishing with him once – and once was more than enough for me.”
Fortunately Gvardiol wasn’t so easily discouraged where football was concerned. Aged seven he dissolved into tears at his first training session with NK Trešnjevka, the small club where Tihomir finished his own amateur career. “Because I was little there was always nervousness seeing new kids around; I wasn’t really comfortable with it,” says Gvardiol. He overcame his bashfulness to excel and join Dinamo Zagreb within 18 months. Aged “16 or 17” Gvardiol was “on the bench in the Dinamo youth teams and thinking of leaving football”.
The idea was fleeting and, hearing Gvardiol explain Tihomir’s ongoing commitment to rising daily at 4am for his market shift, unlikely to take hold. “It’s difficult for people who have gained a work ethic to just abandon something they’ve been bound to throughout their career,” he says.
Gvardiol grew up with his parents and older sisters Franka and Lorena, on the fifth floor of a Zagreb skyscraper. Still in the infancy of his football career, he is expected to scale rarefied heights. “He will touch the stars – he will be elite,” said Damir Krznar, a Dinamo Zagreb academy director when Gvardiol was developing, and first-team head coach when the teenage player figured prominently in Dinamo’s 2020/21 Croatian double-winning campaign. Gvardiol was so highly rated that there were whispers he’d be the best player the club had ever produced – and this the same club where Luka Modrić started out, no less.
Dalibor Poldrugač, another coach from the club’s academy and the man who first alighted on the idea of switching Gvardiol from full-back to centre-half, was more forthright back in 2019. “If he’s not a regular for Croatia’s senior squad by the time he’s 20, someone should go to jail for it,” he said. Happily there was no requirement for any collars to be felt: Gvardiol started all four of his country’s matches at EURO 2020.
He celebrated turning 20 in January last year by lifting the ball over Wolfsburg keeper Koen Casteels for a goal any predatory centre-forward would gladly call their own. A Twitter account dedicated to football wonderkids noted that Gvardiol added five interceptions and eight ball recoveries to complete a dynamic birthday performance. “I like to have the ball at my feet,” he says. “But I also like to be more involved in the game if the match and the opponent allow.”
Gvardiol watched from the bench when Leipzig lost their opening two Champions League group fixtures this season. Following his restoration to the starting XI, the Germans won their four remaining matches, Gvardiol scoring in a rip-roaring victory over defending champions Real Madrid and aiding clean-sheet efforts in handsome wins over Celtic and Shakhtar Donetsk.
This is football at its most unforgiving end however, so Gvardiol’s progress won’t follow an uninterrupted upwards trajectory. An exceptional World Cup in Qatar, where Gvardiol was ever-present in Croatia’s bronze-medal campaign and scored in the third-place play-off win over Morocco, featured one humbling episode, when Lionel Messi led the masked centre-back on a prolonged, torturous dance before teeing up Argentina’s final goal in a 3-0 semi-final victory. Gvardiol’s reflection on a chastening passage of play – “Everyone makes mistakes” – was illustrative of a pragmatic, phlegmatic personality that will serve its owner well.
He refused to talk up a sound containing job on Erling Haaland in Leipzig’s 4-1 victory at Borussia Dortmund late last season, typical of his modesty. “Honestly, it was this period when he wanted to leave, so maybe he wasn’t happy,” said Gvardiol. “I believe he is much better than what he did in that game.”
Gvardiol won’t have sourced much consolation from having his judgement validated when Norwegian wrecking-ball striker Haaland scored five times in Manchester City’s 7-0 Champions League last-16 defeat of Leipzig in March. But it is testament to the far-ranging qualities of a player christened ‘Little Pep’ by team-mates, due to a surname sounding similar to that of Manchester City manager Guardiola, that even after Leipzig’s loss in Manchester, respected voices were reiterating deep-seated views over Gvardiol’s quality. Owen Hargreaves, a Champions League winner with Bayern Mūnchen and Manchester United, told BT Sport: “I think he’ll be the best centre-back in the world one day. He learned a lot today [against City] and probably wouldn’t mind playing in a team like this, rather than against them.”
Gvardiol left his homeland for Leipzig in summer 2021, opting against a transfer to Leeds United because, according to Krznar, he wants to arrive in the Premier League “a completely finished, great player”. Gvardiol boasts the raw attributes to achieve that aim. His timing in the tackle is immaculate and he challenges like he means it. Gvardiol emphatically conforms to the modern demand for beginning play from the back by either delivering fast, penetrating passes or utilising exceptional close control to advance with the ball at his feet.
He also attacks the ball in opposing penalty areas like an old-fashioned No9: the leap to score in the first leg of the Manchester City tie might have had its origins in the basketball Gvardiol played in his youth. “I was really into sport, whether it was football, basketball or handball,” he says. “It was something that got me through childhood and I couldn’t do without.”
If the fish trade never stood a chance, the same wasn’t true of those other sports. “If I wasn’t a footballer, I’d probably have a go at basketball or handball,” says Gvardiol. “But here we are. I thank God for where I am. I am glad my family and I haven’t changed and have remained as we were.”
There is unanimous agreement in football circles over Gvardiol’s capabilities and potential. One Premier League recruitment director said he is “probably the best left-footed ball-playing centre-half in Europe”. Still, the Croatian remains characteristically grounded. Proving the saying about the apple not falling far from the tree, he concludes: “You shouldn’t think that talent will be enough. I’ve heard that a million times, but it really is true. You always have to work more.”
Twice Joško Gvardiol was nearly lost to football. Contrary to common belief, however, the hirsute Leipzig defender never considered throwing in the sport to work with his father, Tihomir, a fishmonger at Zagreb’s Dolac Market. “When I’d finish school and training, on my way home I’d stop by to see him at the market,” says Gvardiol. “I also went fishing with him once – and once was more than enough for me.”
Fortunately Gvardiol wasn’t so easily discouraged where football was concerned. Aged seven he dissolved into tears at his first training session with NK Trešnjevka, the small club where Tihomir finished his own amateur career. “Because I was little there was always nervousness seeing new kids around; I wasn’t really comfortable with it,” says Gvardiol. He overcame his bashfulness to excel and join Dinamo Zagreb within 18 months. Aged “16 or 17” Gvardiol was “on the bench in the Dinamo youth teams and thinking of leaving football”.
The idea was fleeting and, hearing Gvardiol explain Tihomir’s ongoing commitment to rising daily at 4am for his market shift, unlikely to take hold. “It’s difficult for people who have gained a work ethic to just abandon something they’ve been bound to throughout their career,” he says.
Gvardiol grew up with his parents and older sisters Franka and Lorena, on the fifth floor of a Zagreb skyscraper. Still in the infancy of his football career, he is expected to scale rarefied heights. “He will touch the stars – he will be elite,” said Damir Krznar, a Dinamo Zagreb academy director when Gvardiol was developing, and first-team head coach when the teenage player figured prominently in Dinamo’s 2020/21 Croatian double-winning campaign. Gvardiol was so highly rated that there were whispers he’d be the best player the club had ever produced – and this the same club where Luka Modrić started out, no less.
Dalibor Poldrugač, another coach from the club’s academy and the man who first alighted on the idea of switching Gvardiol from full-back to centre-half, was more forthright back in 2019. “If he’s not a regular for Croatia’s senior squad by the time he’s 20, someone should go to jail for it,” he said. Happily there was no requirement for any collars to be felt: Gvardiol started all four of his country’s matches at EURO 2020.
He celebrated turning 20 in January last year by lifting the ball over Wolfsburg keeper Koen Casteels for a goal any predatory centre-forward would gladly call their own. A Twitter account dedicated to football wonderkids noted that Gvardiol added five interceptions and eight ball recoveries to complete a dynamic birthday performance. “I like to have the ball at my feet,” he says. “But I also like to be more involved in the game if the match and the opponent allow.”
Gvardiol watched from the bench when Leipzig lost their opening two Champions League group fixtures this season. Following his restoration to the starting XI, the Germans won their four remaining matches, Gvardiol scoring in a rip-roaring victory over defending champions Real Madrid and aiding clean-sheet efforts in handsome wins over Celtic and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Twice Joško Gvardiol was nearly lost to football. Contrary to common belief, however, the hirsute Leipzig defender never considered throwing in the sport to work with his father, Tihomir, a fishmonger at Zagreb’s Dolac Market. “When I’d finish school and training, on my way home I’d stop by to see him at the market,” says Gvardiol. “I also went fishing with him once – and once was more than enough for me.”
Fortunately Gvardiol wasn’t so easily discouraged where football was concerned. Aged seven he dissolved into tears at his first training session with NK Trešnjevka, the small club where Tihomir finished his own amateur career. “Because I was little there was always nervousness seeing new kids around; I wasn’t really comfortable with it,” says Gvardiol. He overcame his bashfulness to excel and join Dinamo Zagreb within 18 months. Aged “16 or 17” Gvardiol was “on the bench in the Dinamo youth teams and thinking of leaving football”.
The idea was fleeting and, hearing Gvardiol explain Tihomir’s ongoing commitment to rising daily at 4am for his market shift, unlikely to take hold. “It’s difficult for people who have gained a work ethic to just abandon something they’ve been bound to throughout their career,” he says.
Gvardiol grew up with his parents and older sisters Franka and Lorena, on the fifth floor of a Zagreb skyscraper. Still in the infancy of his football career, he is expected to scale rarefied heights. “He will touch the stars – he will be elite,” said Damir Krznar, a Dinamo Zagreb academy director when Gvardiol was developing, and first-team head coach when the teenage player figured prominently in Dinamo’s 2020/21 Croatian double-winning campaign. Gvardiol was so highly rated that there were whispers he’d be the best player the club had ever produced – and this the same club where Luka Modrić started out, no less.
Dalibor Poldrugač, another coach from the club’s academy and the man who first alighted on the idea of switching Gvardiol from full-back to centre-half, was more forthright back in 2019. “If he’s not a regular for Croatia’s senior squad by the time he’s 20, someone should go to jail for it,” he said. Happily there was no requirement for any collars to be felt: Gvardiol started all four of his country’s matches at EURO 2020.
He celebrated turning 20 in January last year by lifting the ball over Wolfsburg keeper Koen Casteels for a goal any predatory centre-forward would gladly call their own. A Twitter account dedicated to football wonderkids noted that Gvardiol added five interceptions and eight ball recoveries to complete a dynamic birthday performance. “I like to have the ball at my feet,” he says. “But I also like to be more involved in the game if the match and the opponent allow.”
Gvardiol watched from the bench when Leipzig lost their opening two Champions League group fixtures this season. Following his restoration to the starting XI, the Germans won their four remaining matches, Gvardiol scoring in a rip-roaring victory over defending champions Real Madrid and aiding clean-sheet efforts in handsome wins over Celtic and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Twice Joško Gvardiol was nearly lost to football. Contrary to common belief, however, the hirsute Leipzig defender never considered throwing in the sport to work with his father, Tihomir, a fishmonger at Zagreb’s Dolac Market. “When I’d finish school and training, on my way home I’d stop by to see him at the market,” says Gvardiol. “I also went fishing with him once – and once was more than enough for me.”
Fortunately Gvardiol wasn’t so easily discouraged where football was concerned. Aged seven he dissolved into tears at his first training session with NK Trešnjevka, the small club where Tihomir finished his own amateur career. “Because I was little there was always nervousness seeing new kids around; I wasn’t really comfortable with it,” says Gvardiol. He overcame his bashfulness to excel and join Dinamo Zagreb within 18 months. Aged “16 or 17” Gvardiol was “on the bench in the Dinamo youth teams and thinking of leaving football”.
The idea was fleeting and, hearing Gvardiol explain Tihomir’s ongoing commitment to rising daily at 4am for his market shift, unlikely to take hold. “It’s difficult for people who have gained a work ethic to just abandon something they’ve been bound to throughout their career,” he says.
Gvardiol grew up with his parents and older sisters Franka and Lorena, on the fifth floor of a Zagreb skyscraper. Still in the infancy of his football career, he is expected to scale rarefied heights. “He will touch the stars – he will be elite,” said Damir Krznar, a Dinamo Zagreb academy director when Gvardiol was developing, and first-team head coach when the teenage player figured prominently in Dinamo’s 2020/21 Croatian double-winning campaign. Gvardiol was so highly rated that there were whispers he’d be the best player the club had ever produced – and this the same club where Luka Modrić started out, no less.
Dalibor Poldrugač, another coach from the club’s academy and the man who first alighted on the idea of switching Gvardiol from full-back to centre-half, was more forthright back in 2019. “If he’s not a regular for Croatia’s senior squad by the time he’s 20, someone should go to jail for it,” he said. Happily there was no requirement for any collars to be felt: Gvardiol started all four of his country’s matches at EURO 2020.
He celebrated turning 20 in January last year by lifting the ball over Wolfsburg keeper Koen Casteels for a goal any predatory centre-forward would gladly call their own. A Twitter account dedicated to football wonderkids noted that Gvardiol added five interceptions and eight ball recoveries to complete a dynamic birthday performance. “I like to have the ball at my feet,” he says. “But I also like to be more involved in the game if the match and the opponent allow.”
Gvardiol watched from the bench when Leipzig lost their opening two Champions League group fixtures this season. Following his restoration to the starting XI, the Germans won their four remaining matches, Gvardiol scoring in a rip-roaring victory over defending champions Real Madrid and aiding clean-sheet efforts in handsome wins over Celtic and Shakhtar Donetsk.
This is football at its most unforgiving end however, so Gvardiol’s progress won’t follow an uninterrupted upwards trajectory. An exceptional World Cup in Qatar, where Gvardiol was ever-present in Croatia’s bronze-medal campaign and scored in the third-place play-off win over Morocco, featured one humbling episode, when Lionel Messi led the masked centre-back on a prolonged, torturous dance before teeing up Argentina’s final goal in a 3-0 semi-final victory. Gvardiol’s reflection on a chastening passage of play – “Everyone makes mistakes” – was illustrative of a pragmatic, phlegmatic personality that will serve its owner well.
He refused to talk up a sound containing job on Erling Haaland in Leipzig’s 4-1 victory at Borussia Dortmund late last season, typical of his modesty. “Honestly, it was this period when he wanted to leave, so maybe he wasn’t happy,” said Gvardiol. “I believe he is much better than what he did in that game.”
Gvardiol won’t have sourced much consolation from having his judgement validated when Norwegian wrecking-ball striker Haaland scored five times in Manchester City’s 7-0 Champions League last-16 defeat of Leipzig in March. But it is testament to the far-ranging qualities of a player christened ‘Little Pep’ by team-mates, due to a surname sounding similar to that of Manchester City manager Guardiola, that even after Leipzig’s loss in Manchester, respected voices were reiterating deep-seated views over Gvardiol’s quality. Owen Hargreaves, a Champions League winner with Bayern Mūnchen and Manchester United, told BT Sport: “I think he’ll be the best centre-back in the world one day. He learned a lot today [against City] and probably wouldn’t mind playing in a team like this, rather than against them.”
Gvardiol left his homeland for Leipzig in summer 2021, opting against a transfer to Leeds United because, according to Krznar, he wants to arrive in the Premier League “a completely finished, great player”. Gvardiol boasts the raw attributes to achieve that aim. His timing in the tackle is immaculate and he challenges like he means it. Gvardiol emphatically conforms to the modern demand for beginning play from the back by either delivering fast, penetrating passes or utilising exceptional close control to advance with the ball at his feet.
He also attacks the ball in opposing penalty areas like an old-fashioned No9: the leap to score in the first leg of the Manchester City tie might have had its origins in the basketball Gvardiol played in his youth. “I was really into sport, whether it was football, basketball or handball,” he says. “It was something that got me through childhood and I couldn’t do without.”
If the fish trade never stood a chance, the same wasn’t true of those other sports. “If I wasn’t a footballer, I’d probably have a go at basketball or handball,” says Gvardiol. “But here we are. I thank God for where I am. I am glad my family and I haven’t changed and have remained as we were.”
There is unanimous agreement in football circles over Gvardiol’s capabilities and potential. One Premier League recruitment director said he is “probably the best left-footed ball-playing centre-half in Europe”. Still, the Croatian remains characteristically grounded. Proving the saying about the apple not falling far from the tree, he concludes: “You shouldn’t think that talent will be enough. I’ve heard that a million times, but it really is true. You always have to work more.”
Twice Joško Gvardiol was nearly lost to football. Contrary to common belief, however, the hirsute Leipzig defender never considered throwing in the sport to work with his father, Tihomir, a fishmonger at Zagreb’s Dolac Market. “When I’d finish school and training, on my way home I’d stop by to see him at the market,” says Gvardiol. “I also went fishing with him once – and once was more than enough for me.”
Fortunately Gvardiol wasn’t so easily discouraged where football was concerned. Aged seven he dissolved into tears at his first training session with NK Trešnjevka, the small club where Tihomir finished his own amateur career. “Because I was little there was always nervousness seeing new kids around; I wasn’t really comfortable with it,” says Gvardiol. He overcame his bashfulness to excel and join Dinamo Zagreb within 18 months. Aged “16 or 17” Gvardiol was “on the bench in the Dinamo youth teams and thinking of leaving football”.
The idea was fleeting and, hearing Gvardiol explain Tihomir’s ongoing commitment to rising daily at 4am for his market shift, unlikely to take hold. “It’s difficult for people who have gained a work ethic to just abandon something they’ve been bound to throughout their career,” he says.
Gvardiol grew up with his parents and older sisters Franka and Lorena, on the fifth floor of a Zagreb skyscraper. Still in the infancy of his football career, he is expected to scale rarefied heights. “He will touch the stars – he will be elite,” said Damir Krznar, a Dinamo Zagreb academy director when Gvardiol was developing, and first-team head coach when the teenage player figured prominently in Dinamo’s 2020/21 Croatian double-winning campaign. Gvardiol was so highly rated that there were whispers he’d be the best player the club had ever produced – and this the same club where Luka Modrić started out, no less.
Dalibor Poldrugač, another coach from the club’s academy and the man who first alighted on the idea of switching Gvardiol from full-back to centre-half, was more forthright back in 2019. “If he’s not a regular for Croatia’s senior squad by the time he’s 20, someone should go to jail for it,” he said. Happily there was no requirement for any collars to be felt: Gvardiol started all four of his country’s matches at EURO 2020.
He celebrated turning 20 in January last year by lifting the ball over Wolfsburg keeper Koen Casteels for a goal any predatory centre-forward would gladly call their own. A Twitter account dedicated to football wonderkids noted that Gvardiol added five interceptions and eight ball recoveries to complete a dynamic birthday performance. “I like to have the ball at my feet,” he says. “But I also like to be more involved in the game if the match and the opponent allow.”
Gvardiol watched from the bench when Leipzig lost their opening two Champions League group fixtures this season. Following his restoration to the starting XI, the Germans won their four remaining matches, Gvardiol scoring in a rip-roaring victory over defending champions Real Madrid and aiding clean-sheet efforts in handsome wins over Celtic and Shakhtar Donetsk.
