GNK Dinamo Zagreb: Serial champions from the Maksimir forest | OneFootball

Croatian football heavyweights our third Champions League opponents

It wasn't such a remarkable start back on 21 September 2007 at the Fischl sports complex. Under the guidance of new player manager Nenad Bjelica, FC Kärnten were beaten despite having an extra man for 70 minutes. Our Red Bull Juniors took a 1-0 win at the side bottom of the Austrian second tier – and Bjelica's decorated coaching career had begun. The 53-year-old would hang his boots up soon afterwards and take WAC into the Bundesliga, Austria Vienna into the Champions League and Dinamo Zagreb to two league titles. After short spells in Turkey and Germany, the coach returned to the Croatian capital at the end of September. He will take his charges on 23 October at 21:00 Austrian time to our Red Bull Arena as part of the third matchday of the UEFA Champions League.

The players following in the footsteps of Luka Modric, Dani Olmo and Dario Simic have not made an ideal start to the competition. They did show resilience though in recovering from a 2-9 humbling at Munich's Allianz Arena to hold Adi Hütter's AS Monaco to a 2-2 draw and come much closer to a win. It took a little while to recover from their nightmare in Munich on the domestic stage too, but they did it in some style, with a 5-1 win in a derby against NK Lokomotiva following three league matches without a win. They are currently two points behind Hajduk Split, the Croatian league leaders. The side from the capital are no strangers to success - asides from Rijeka's title win in 2017, the dark blues have been champions every year since 2006!

25 Croatian league titles

Golden memories

The biggest success in club history came on the European stage. In the Fairs' Cup – a competition contested between cities with trade fairs between 1955 and 1971 – Dinamo beat favourites Leeds United in 1966/67 at home in their Maksimir stadium. The victory would go down in Croatian football history as the Miracle of the Maksimir Forest. Maksimir is the name not only of the Arena, but also the district of Zagreb it is located in as well as the park, which is located directly next to the stadium and separated only by Zagreb Zoo.

We have faced several clashes with the Croatian outfit in recent years. Whether in the UEFA Europa League (2014/15), qualifying for the UEFA Champions League (2009/10 and 2016/17) or in the main competition (2022/23) – we have shared some memorable encounters, in which we are unbeaten over the regular 90 minutes.

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