The Croatian had a fruitful 2018 FIFA World Cup, where he scored 3 goals and reached the final with his country, but ended up on the losing side. In the 2017/18 season, Mandzukic won the Serie A title and the Coppa Italia with Juventus, however, he scored only 10 goals from 43 games in all competitions in the whole season. In the Serie A, he found the net just 5 times in 32 appearances.
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At the start of the new season, Mandzukic has been in good form and has scored 4 goals from games in all competitions so far. Incidentally, all of his 4 goals have been in the league, where he has almost equalled his goals tally from last season. Even with the advent of Cristiano Ronaldo, Mandzukic has evolved to become Juventus’ main man at present. However, none of that justifies his inclusion in the 30 man shortlist.
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Player who missed out: Robert Lewandowski
The Polish striker scored 41 goals last season, won the Bundesliga with Bayern, was the top scorer in the league and has already scored 8 goals from 10 games this season. It is hard to explain why he was ignored!
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About the author
Deepungsu Pandit
Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written over 8500 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.
Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.
Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.
Deepungsu has been a Manchester United supporter since the year 2000. Unsurprisingly, his favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson and the Scotsman helped him get through some of the toughest days of his life. Like the fiery Scot, Deepungsu also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to accuracy in articles and only relies on credible sources.
Despite believing in Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to create an iconic rivalry, Deepungsu reckons no one can match the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo. He spends his leisure time writing about life on his blog, reading books, and playing the guitar.