The day Croatian icon Boban’s flying kick on a policeman sparked a riot as the Maksimir Stadium played host to a match of simmering tensions with Yugoslavia on the brink of war

What’s inarguably the most famous kick in the history of Dinamo Zagreb is never measured by its distance from goal or its impact on a football match.

While it was executed by one of the club’s most famous sons and came on a day when the Maksimir Stadium played host to an old foe, it didn’t actually even involve a ball being struck.

By 1990, a decade after the death of Marshall Tito, Yugoslavia was teetering on the brink of all-out war.

For Croatians yearning for independence, sporting events had become the best environment to express political and social views.

With nationalistic sentiment rising, Dinamo’s game against Red Star Belgrade on May 13, 1990, always felt like it was more than a football match.

In a sporting sense, it mattered little. Red Star had already sealed the title, a triumph that would lead to them become European champions when they defeated Marseille a year later. But that didn’t prevent 3,000 of their fans taking the train to Zagreb for the late afternoon kick-off.

There were running battles in the city throughout the day with violence escalating as kick-off approached.

‘That derby reflected everything that had been going on in our society and everyday life. Yugoslav football reflected Yugoslavia,’ recalled Zvonimir Boban, then Dinamo’s 21-year-old skipper.

‘It was obvious that each (region of the former Yugoslavia) would want to become an independent state,’ said Dinamo goalkeeper Miralem Ibrahimovic. ‘Everyone understood that except the politicians who thought differently.’

No one walking up to the ground that afternoon could possibly have guessed exactly how serious the ramifications of the game would be, though.

The atmosphere inside the Maksimir was nothing short of toxic. On one side stood Dinamo’s Bad Blue Boys, many of whom would soon fight for Croatia’s freedom.

On the other stood Red Star’s ultras – the Delije – many destined to soon be part of Serbia’s armed forces. Among their number was Zelijko Raznatovic – known as Arkan – a career criminal and murderous paramilitary who would go on to form the infamous Serb Volunteer Guard.

What ensued is regarded by some as the starting point for the Balkan war which began for real a year later and would end with the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Long before kick-off, the Red Star hooligans began vaulting fences and attacking the Dinamo fans with the police showing little interest in intervening.

‘We came out to warm up right by the Red Star supporters so we couldn’t miss what was happening,’ added Ibrahimovic.

‘The police did not react adequately. They allowed them to destroy our stadium. They allowed them to leave their stand and move across to another one where our supporters were.

‘It was chaos. There were stones and tear gas everywhere, even on the pitch. It became obvious we weren’t going to be able to start the match.’

The players were ushered towards the tunnel, but some returned as they saw how serious the situation was becoming.

The match did eventually start after a delay although the running battles in the background made it impossible for anyone involved to concentrate.

After 10 minutes, Boban saw a policeman – who he assumed to be sympathetic to the Serbs – striking a Dinamo fan.

Having approached him and asked him to desist, diplomacy was short-lived.

Overcome with anger, the midfielder sprinted towards the officer and jumped into the air, launching his right knee into his face.

‘I could see the police were only treating our fans badly and I got increasingly frustrated as I was thinking about all the great injustices that had been done to people over the years, to the fans and also to us,’ he recalled.

Refik Ahmetovic, the police officer, later said: ‘Boban said something to me, but I couldn’t understand him.

‘He kept looking at me and I could see in his eyes that we might be about to clash.

‘I looked over my right shoulder and saw he was already in the air with his knees and arms together. He kicked me and knocked me to the ground.’

The match was immediately abandoned. On the terraces and on the field, rival fans fought each other with their bare hands. Hundreds were injured.

‘Where is the police? Where is the bloody police?’ Boban was heard to say.

He later said: ‘The hooligans from Belgrade were ruining our stadium. The police at the time, who were absolutely a regime police, did not respond at all.

‘Here I was, a public face prepared to risk his life, career and everything that fame could have brought, all because of one ideal, one cause; the Croatian cause.’

Within a year, the conflict started, running for a decade with over 100,000 people losing their lives.

While the end of Yugoslavia as we knew it felt inevitable, many hold that it’s impossible to understate the importance of that infamous match and Boban’s reaction.

‘There were certainly tensions,’ said Red Star’s European Cup-winning goalkeeper Stevan Stojanovic.

‘But what happened was like a sign that Yugoslavia was about to disintegrate. It turned out to be a match that marked the beginning of the end for Yugoslavia.’

The immediate fall-out was that Boban was punished by the Yugoslavian FA and suspended from the national team for six months, resulting in him missing Italia 90.

Such a sublime talent could not be kept down for long, though. Already on the radar of Europe’s biggest clubs, he signed for AC Milan for £8million in 1991.

Having initially been loaned out to Bari, he returned to the San Siro and became an integral part of Fabio Capello’s magnificent side along with the likes of Paulo Maldini, Ruud Gullit and Marco Van Basten.

His midfield partnership with Demetrio Albertini took Milan to the Serie A title in 1993 and 1994 with a scintillating 4-0 destruction of Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona delivering the ‘94 Champions League in Athens. He’d win two further titles before winding down his career with Celta Vigo.

Before that short spell in Spain, his talent was allowed to grace the international stage it deserved when he helped Croatia finish third in France 1998.

After hanging up his boots, he completed a history degree, writing a thesis on Christianity in the Roman Empire, writing columns for Gazzetta dello Sport and working as a pundit and analyst for Sky Italia.

In a strange plot twist, he would go on to become FIFA’s deputy Secretary General before being taking on the role of UEFA’s chief of football in 2021.

But his new life as a mover and shaker in football’s corridors of power hasn’t changed what Dinamo fans think of him.

Some 34 years later, many fans in the cafes and bars around the stadium where Celtic will play on Tuesday have the image of Boban attacking Ahmetovic as a screenshot on their mobile phones.

While most would now concede that Luka Modric, another ex-Dinamo player, has demonstrated himself to be the greatest player Croatia has ever produced, Boban’s actions that day sees him afforded unrivalled status as a national hero.

‘I don’t regret it at all,’ Boban said in an interview in 2021. ‘It was a fight for freedom against the regime.’