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Hazbic runs the @BiHFootball, a Twitter account dedicated to exclusively covering Bosnian football, and has been reporting on Roma’s Bosnian trio of Miralem Pjanic, Edin Dzeko and Ervin Zukanovic for years. Today he spoke with Sebastian Fazio…
A lot of Roma fans are unfamiliar with Zukanovi. Can you give us your personal assessment of the defender?
Hazbic: “He is a strong center-back that can play as left-back too. He used to play in the Austrian 5th division only five years ago, so it’s pretty amazing. Both him and Dzeko come from the same Bosnian club, FK Zeljeznicar."
Do you think he’s ready for this big step in his career?
“That is a good question. To be honest I don’t know and this will be a great test for him. I think that we all are bit nervous about this considering that he hasn’t played at such a big club before.”
Earlier you did a broad scouting report on Zukanovic. What would you say are his best abilities?
“Zukanovic is a very smart player in my opinion. He has great timing and won’t do stupid things on the pitch. The weakest part is his speed. He will be better once his speed gets better.”
Centre back or left-back? Where is he best?
“I like him more as a centre-back.”
You’ve watched Zukanovic closely these past couple of seasons. How have they been?
“You need to have one thing in mind and that is, Zukanovic has slowly gone to bigger and bigger clubs each time. As I said in the beginning, he started off in a division five club and now he is in Roma. He has played great for the national team.”
Can he succeed at Roma?
“I certainly hope so.”
Finally, on Dzeko, he’s obviously a top striker but has been going through a tough period. Can he get back to his best form?
“I am sure he can. He can obviously score goals - we have seen that in the past. Unfortunately he has not got a lot of help so far from the midfield and that has harmed him.”
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