Toljan played the whole match in a 2-0 loss to Real Madrid that keeps them in the relegation spots. A couple of iffy plays that led to good Bellingham opportunities, but those weren't the ones that turned into goals. Our "hot young 19 year old prospect" with middling ratings in the loss.
Toljan has 25 starts for 19th place Levante in La Liga this season at RB. https://www.transfermarkt.us/jeremy-toljan/leistungsdaten/spieler/129674 Come on Jeremy, only two months left to get your passport!
Pretty solid season for Toljan. sadly not in Germany’s plans. He would have had better shot if he had switched to Croatia or US, if he was interested in either.
IIRC @bshredder has reported that in his case (parents weren't married, father died before he was born, no paperwork applied for during childhood/adolescence, etc.) getting a US passport would have been very challenging but with his mother being Croatian-born, a Croatian passport would have been a cinch. @MetroFever would know better but I'd imagine the Croatian FA would have been in like a flash if he'd shown serious interest but that never happened either. Given his early 90s birth and him being born and in Germany, my guess - and it's only that - is maybe his mother was a Yugoslav/"Yugo-nostalgic" rather than a Croat: i.e. born in Croatia to a mixed family or someone who identified with Yugoslavia rather than Croatia and that she had no great feeling for the homeland to pass on to him. In that case, it would be Germany or nothing for him.
he made it 100% clear he wasn't interested in playing for us. Now we have better options even if he was interested.
I couldn't have written the post any better. There are zero reports of the Croatian Soccer Federation being interested in him even though they usually go after anyone who's eligible and has high skill. He's already 31 and they're always looking for players with upside like Bayern Munich's 16 year old kid who they just got to commit to the National Team last week even though he was born in Germany. Like you pointed out, they tend to lean on guys more who identify with the culture. Croatia added Portsmouth's Segečić to the World Cup squad today even though it's his grandparents who were born there. Adrian is proud of his heritage where I doubt Toljan could find the country on a map, most likely for the reasons you pointed out. Germany is loaded with young talent and don't know why they would "waste" a roster spot on him. If the US doesn't get out of the preliminary round of the World Cup, possibly he's on their radar since you can't exclude anyone at that point since Tim Ream became a starter again at a very late age.
I'm obviously late to this response, but why would they call him up at this point in his career? Because of lack of strikers, maybe they'd be interested if the guy was scoring a ton of goals. HNL's Hajduk Split had Niko Sigur join Canada once he saw the National Team had zero interest in him (he isn't good enough). Their starting right back is Stanišić (Bayern Munich) and the two guys that would be possibilities to come in as a substitute who made the WC roster are better than Toljan and a better fit.