Luka Vuskovic enjoyed his Amex debut but knows he can still improve

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The 19-year-old Croatia defender impressed on Saturday in the 3-0 win over AS Roma.

Nick Szczepanik

2026-08-10T06:00+01:00

Luka Vuskovic clears the danger during the win over AS Roma. 📷Paul Hazlewood

Luka Vuskovic was happy with his first appearance in front of Albion fans in the 3-0 victory over AS Roma in Saturday’s pre-season friendly at the Amex. But he insists that there is more to come and that, at 19, he has plenty of room for improvement.

Albion’s record signing played the first half against the Serie A side, made several important blocks and twice came close to finding the Roma net with headers.

“I think it was a really good game from all of us, against a really good opponent,” he said. “There are still small things that we can improve and we will, but all together I thought it was been a very good performance.

“I could have scored but [I’m] not on my top level. In the future it will be better.

“I'm just 19, so there's too much space to work on, too much improvement to have and I try to work as much as possible to, let's say, unlock all of them.”

He can count on the advice of senior players, who have been helping him to settle in, but have also told him what to expect when games begin in earnest.

“It's been really easy because my teammates and the coaching staff and all the club have been helping me since I came here,” he said.

“They just told me that I need to be focused 100% of the time. I think in the Premier League the focus is 100% the most important thing.

“It's the best league in the world of course and I'm more than happy to play my first game and I'm really happy and proud.”

With Pascal Struijk and Michael Svoboda also joining the squad this summer in addition to skipper Lewis Dunk and Olivier Boscagli, Luka knows there will be competition for starts in central defence. But he insists that he has been given no guarantees, despite the record transfer fee.

“Whoever is the best in the games, in training, he will start,” he said. “It's great to have competition in our position. We have really a lot of good players and whoever is the best, he will play and it's as simple as that.

“I think it [the transfer fee] doesn't matter so much because it's just a number. I have to prove myself and I have to do my best and I will try to do it.”

The Croatia defender began his career at his home-town club Hajduk Split, who sent him on loan to Radomiak Radom in Poland and Westerlo of Belgium. After joining Tottenham Hotspur, he was loaned to Hamburger SV of Germany’s Bundesliga, where he made 30 appearances and scored six goals last season.

“My time in Poland helped me as a player a lot. Then Westerlo, then Hamburg. All those moves were very important and I'm very happy that I went through it all.”

He has seven caps for his country and became the youngest Croatia player to appear at a World Cup earlier this summer when he lined up against England in their opening game.

However, a change in formation during that game meant that he did not appear again, the team going out to Portugal in the first knockout round. “I have really good teammates in Croatia and it's been a nice World Cup. We are not obviously happy with the result. Every small mistake seemed to cost us a lot.”

He sees joining Albion as “the best step for me in my career.

"It's one of the biggest machines in the world for producing young players as we can see in the last years and that we will see in the future. I think it's a top club, they showed me a top project and it was very simple to decide to come to Brighton."