Alen Halilovic: The Next Bojan Krkic or a Future Superstar?

There should be little doubt that Barcelona starlet Alen Halilovic has the capacity to become a world-class player—but will he fulfill his true potential or stay somewhere halfway?

On Thursday, Croatia defeated Cyprus 2-0 in a friendly match, and one of the major talking points after the game was Halilovic’s performance. The 18-year-old light-haired midfielder looked impressive at times, cutting through the opponent’s defence in bursts of individual skill. Once again, he looked like a superstar in the making.

That wasn’t anything new. As many who have watched him before will testify, he has been showing flashes of greatness for quite some time now.

He has done so on numerous occasions for Dinamo Zagreb, where he became the youngest-ever debutant for the club and soon after that their youngest-ever goalscorer. That was almost two years ago now, and in the meantime the former record was broken by Fran Brodic, another young prospect who left Dinamo for Belgium’s Club Brugge this summer.

Halilovic himself transferred to Barcelona in July, not long after his 18th birthday. And although he was thought to be among the candidates, he didn’t make the Croatia World Cup squad, arriving early at the Camp Nou instead and beginning his process of integration and adaptation to the tiki-taka philosophy.

Truth be told, Halilovic didn’t look ready for World Cup football, and Croatia manager’s Niko Kovac’s decision to leave him out wasn’t all that surprising, although the youngster had debuted for his country more than a year ago. But this week Kovac fielded him right from the start against Cyprus and might do the same in the Euro 2016 qualifier against Malta on Tuesday.

At the same time, Halilovic also made it onto Barcelona’s Champions League squad list. While he’s expected to play mainly for the club’s “B” squad this season, he could get some minutes in Europe, especially if the Catalans manage to secure qualification from the group stage early enough.

But even that wouldn’t be anything new for the player. He has already had a taste of the Champions League, representing Dinamo Zagreb in the competition at the tender age of 16.

MANU FERNANDEZ/Associated Press

In some respects the Halilovic story resembles that of Bojan Krkic.

A product of the club’s famed La Masia academy, Krkic broke into Barcelona’s senior squad at the age of 17 years and 19 days, breaking the record set by Lionel Messi. That was in 2007; a year later, he debuted for Spain. However, that remains his only full international cap so far.

Like Halilovic, Krkic is a son of a former professional footballer who settled in another country after his career ended. From early on, both players received full support—and even expert help—from their families.

Krkic’s father, Bojan Sr., is Serbian, and he worked as a scout for Barcelona until 2011. Halilovic’s dad, Sejad, captained Bosnia and Herzegovina in his day, later working as a coach in the club’s academy, which is also among the most productive in Europe. Luka Modric, Dejan Lovren and Mateo Kovacic are its alumni, and the latest Croatia squad included no less than seven players developed there.

Krkic, who is also exactly the same height as Halilovic (1.70 m or 5'7"), had the same unfair burden Halilovic is facing today. He was widely seen as the possible “Next Lionel Messi,” which set the bar absurdly high for him. While he made an impressive 104 league appearances for Barcelona, scoring 26 goals, he hasn’t lived up to the hype.

These days he’s strutting his stuff for Stoke City in the Premier League.

The 24-year-old Krkic is far from a finished article yet, but the fact that he’s playing for a mediocre English team, whose style for years served as an antidote to Barca’s possession-based philosophy in football jargon, hardly suggests a bright future.

Why Bojan Krkic’s progress stalled is a matter of debate. Maybe it's because he wasn’t physically strong enough, and his technical talent couldn’t quite compensate for that. Maybe it was something entirely different. The matter of fact is that he developed into a very good, but not exactly great, player.

Halilovic is different in that his style is much more direct.

He has only started to learn the ways of tiki-taka and can still look a bit selfish in key situations. Joining Barca was probably the best thing he could have done for his career, because it really should make him more aware of the tactical aspects of his own game and teach him how to use his amazing first touch, technique and passing skills for a greater good. He certainly has the talent to become a superstar.

Or we will see him doing it on a cold, rainy Tuesday night in Stoke in a few years.

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