His whole career trajectory is weird. I don't know why, it's like he has a terrible agent and a lot of bad luck or something.
He had a really good season in the Croatian league at 21, then went to Spezia in Serie B, which was a weird move and too low for a promising winger who scored 12 goals in the Croatian league. Then back to Rijeka in Croatia. In neither of those he got a chance for some reason. Which is weird cause he does not seem like someone who's goofing off at all. Then went to China & Korea where he finally got playing time and had scored some goals - but given the strength of their leagues - not very impressive either. Then someone at Dinamo made the genius move to sing him up, I don't even understand why, they must have seen something in him more than statistics. No one expected much from a forgotten 26 year old with one good season 5 years ago. Then he had a legendary 4.5 years.
Now his move to Southampton looks like another horrible move again. Being an offensive player in a bottom of the league team is hard enough, add to that the Premier League being the hardest to adapt to league... He'd be an improvement for 3/4 of the Bundesliga at least... And the price of 6 + 2 mil € is also weird. Yes, he's not the youngest anymore but Dinamo has sold some backup/rotation players for more.
He didn't have more luck in the national team either. He has a problem that Perišić - our most match-deciding player for many years - prefers the left wing position (even though he's very versatile and can use both feet equally good). But even when he wasn't fit the coach would prefer someone else, even out of position. There were so many games for experimentation in the Nation's league, friendlies and qualifications, yet Oršić was only getting bits an pieces. It was crazy. Some kind of combination with Perišić right and Oršić left wasn't even tried even though we have no natural and good right winger. Many people were questioning why he's not been given more chances.
Then the World Cup came. Our defense was good and midfield could pass the ball around all day and get into the final 3rd but the attack was completely toothless and indirect. Perišić wasn't playing at his usual standard. Oršić seemed the perfect antidote to this, he always seeks to end the attack with something, he always thinks of the goal. Any kind of change in the front 3 could only be an improvement. I was calling for Oršić in comments of popular articles and getting only upvotes, everyone was agreeing.
This is how much he played in the tournament:
Marocco 0/90
Canada 4/90
Belgium 0/90
Japan 14/120
Brazil 6/120
Argentina 45/90
Marocco 90/90
And in that limited time he managed to get 2 assists (Canada & Brazil) & 1 goal (Marocco 2nd game). Contributed to 3 out of 8 of our goals in the whole tournament in 159 minutes only. The coach looked like a complete idiot to me for this.
