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BEAVERTON — Portland center back Dario Zuparic will be the first one to tell you that he’s a little bit off.

“When I was like 12 or 13, I tried to [head] the ball into the net and some guy kicked me [in the face] with a volley,” Zuparic said of a moment growing up in Croatia. “So I think that’s changed my life. I was crazy from that moment.”

Where does that show? Maybe it’s in the offseason.

“Balkans are crazy, so if you party with them you need like a month to rest. When I go home, for like two months I go crazy there and then here I don’t want to see them.”

Maybe it shows on the pitch, where Zuparic is not one to spend too much time milking an injury.

“I like bleeding,” he said.

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Tyson Alger covered the Ducks for The Oregonian and The Athletic before branching out on his own to create and run The I-5 Corridor. He brings more than a decade of experience on the University of Oregon sports beat. He has covered everything from Marcus Mariota’s Heisman Trophy-winning season to the Ducks’ first year in the Big 10.