Nikola Kalinic was actually uncapped when the Euro 2008 squads were announced, despite receiving call-ups for the final two Euro qualifiers against F.Y.R. Macedonia and England but in which ultimately he didn’t play. He is now secure in the knowledge that he is being widely viewed as the rising star of Croatian football. Having been a top marksman at the youth levels, scoring sixteen times for Croatia Under 17’s and a further eleven for the U19’s, twenty year old Kalinić was the third top scorer in the Croatian league with seventeen goals for Hajduk Split in the season just completed.

He made his league bow at the age of eighteen for Hajduk Split but was to spend the 2006/2007 season out on loan with two different clubs - Pula 1856 where he managed to score three goals and HNK Šibenik where he scored four goals in consecutive games, the first of which was against former loan team Pula.

When he arrived back at Hajduk in at the beginning of the 2007/2008 campaign, he made a stunning start to the season, scoring eleven goals before the end of October and thirteen by the time the winter break arrived.