This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
18 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Dinamo Zagreb, and it is not being withdrawn.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Dinamo Zagreb have had the benefit of it.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.99, and 2 involvements.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Josip Mišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Dion Beljo obliged against HNK Gorica. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Dinamo Zagreb.
17 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Grischa Prömel and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dinamo Zagreb hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A season average of 7.37 with 10 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Match29 Mar 2028
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Dinamo Zagreb. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Dion Beljo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samy Mmaee will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Zagreb the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Dinamo Zagreb, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
6 shut-outs in 19 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Ivan Filipović has been having a lot of them.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Zagreb can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dinamo Zagreb heard it as anything else.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Dinamo Zagreb are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Abo Fani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dinamo Zagreb and NK Varazdin in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Sergi Domínguez has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Gabriel Vidović will call it something else in private.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Mato Kramaric could afford to be generous.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dinamo Zagreb have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Abo Fani is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Dinamo Zagreb will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dion Beljo signs something — a contract at Dinamo Zagreb or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Lokomotiva Zagreb next, and one man in the Dinamo Zagreb dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Florian Kastenmeier has written the date down.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matteo Pérez Vinlöf did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3‑1 against Hajduk Split, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Dinamo Zagreb and a story that will outlast his contract.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dinamo Zagreb heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Josip Brundić’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Dinamo Zagreb needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Dinamo Zagreb. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Dinamo Zagreb will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Abo Fani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Position 1, 21 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
$31.8M settles it between the clubs for Mojmír Chytil
Bournemouth have accepted the money. What Dinamo Zagreb do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
HNK Gorica will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Dinamo Zagreb were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Dinamo Zagreb have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Two goals and a mark of 8.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Paksi for Kirill Kravtsov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Léo Jardim was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dinamo Zagreb heard it as anything else.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Dinamo Zagreb training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Abo Fani is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
In brief
Player ratingsLuka Ivanušec was on a different afternoon to everybody else
The clubs have shaken hands with CSKA Moscow; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Opatija waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Nikola Čavlina had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer from Vasas for Lukas Kačavenda was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Dinamo Zagreb are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luka Ivanušec and Dinamo Zagreb agree another 5 years.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Dinamo Zagreb have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Nikola Čavlina had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Dinamo Zagreb, and it is not being withdrawn.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lukas Kačavenda and Dinamo Zagreb agree another 4 years.
Samy Mmaee was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dinamo Zagreb, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gabriel Vidović and Dinamo Zagreb agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Mislav Oršić is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Dinamo Zagreb than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Utsikten waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Zagreb they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Nobody at Dinamo Zagreb will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Zagreb this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Stjepan Radeljić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
NK Varazdin next, and one man in the Dinamo Zagreb dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Josip Mišić has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
13 appearances at Kustosija and the goals have stopped going in. Dinamo Zagreb lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.05 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dinamo Zagreb hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A 2‑0 win over Slaven Belupo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
With 6 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
“I watch every Dinamo Zagreb game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Karlovac 1919 runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Mislav Oršić is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Dinamo Zagreb and a story that will outlast his contract.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 7.27 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Dinamo Zagreb are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Moris Valinčić is on it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Marked 8.19 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Hajduk Split on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Dinamo Zagreb dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Successful dribbles: 13. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
12 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Two goals and a mark of 8.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Mohamed Abo Fani scored, was marked 7.86, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
$2.1M was the most the club would pay and NK Osijek were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dion Beljo. 4‑3 against HNK Rijeka, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dinamo Zagreb and HNK Rijeka in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Dinamo Zagreb, and it is not being withdrawn.
$2.4M was the most the club would pay and NK Osijek were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Dinamo Zagreb close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 18 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
HNK Rijeka paid $2.5M and Dinamo Zagreb took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dinamo Zagreb heard it as anything else.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.5M — a club that wants Domagoj Bukvić enough to be asked twice.
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Mislav Oršić
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mislav Oršić has come out of that comparison in the side, and Dinamo Zagreb have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.