‘Emotionally it’s the biggest story of my life’
Zvonimir Boban on Uefa, Fifa and a return to Zagreb Zvonimir Boban opens up on returning to Dinamo Zagreb, falling out with Uefa and the actions of Gianni Infantino ‘Since I was four or five, I thought if I had one mission in this world it was to play football’ 24 Dec 2025 - The Guardian Nick Ames An afternoon mist is descending over Stadion Maksimir, enhancing the severity of its dramatic, precipitous angles. In a building across the way, Zvonimir Boban is explaining what brought him back. We are eating squid ink risotto in one corner of a room now configured as Dinamo Zagreb’s canteen; diagonally opposite is the spot where, fighting through the club’s youth system, a young arrival from Dalmatia used to sleep. “Emotionally it’s the biggest story of my life, this one,” Boban says, memories of this former dormitory leaping into his mind’s eye. “Where, if not here?” He has, in some shape or form, been almost everywhere else. Boban has burned brightly but briefly in each of his various li...