October 14, 2019 - TCN contributor Valentino Komusar takes a more in-depth look into the football career of Dinamo star and Croatia national team member Bruno Petkovic.
“It’s a dream of every football player to play for his national team. It’s stuck in your head from an early age. I have to continue to play as I do now and hope that the call will come. Everything else depends on the manager,” Bruno Petkovic said for Croatian media a year ago, a few months after he completed his move from Bologna to Dinamo.
Today, he has earned six caps for the national team and scored four goals. Last Thursday, Bruno was the hero of the game against Hungary after scoring a brace. He debuted for Croatia in March of this year against Azerbaijan and is already one of the key members of the team, while on the club level, he also continues to impress for Dinamo Zagreb. His popularity is also growing worldwide as, in the last few days, his profile on Transfermarkt had the most views, even more than Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi! But the path to success wasn’t easy.
Bruno Petkovic was born in 1994, in Metkovic, a town located in the southeast of the country where he also began his football career following in the footsteps of his father Jakov, who played professionally. When he was 13, Bruno left for Zagreb, where he first joined Dinamo then played for a few different clubs in the capital of Croatia before leaving for Italy in 2013. Bruno signed for Catania, but was loaned out on four occasions before he joined Serie B outfit Trapani in 2016.
There, he started to shine after scoring ten goals in 38 appearances for the club, so much so that he caught the eye of a Serie A team, Bologna. With not much playing time and providing only three assists while playing for the team and out on loan for Hellas Verona, it was time to come back home. Petkovic joined Dinamo once again in August of 2018.
“My wish was to come back as I made my first serious football steps at Dinamo 10 years ago. After so many years abroad, where it was hard, I decided to come back. I think this is a step in the right direction to show why everyone thinks highly of me. Everybody talks about that talent of mine, which I haven’t fully justified if you look at the statistics. It’s up to me to prove my worth and I believe that I will get the chance,” Petkovic said when he came back to Croatia's capital.
Pretty much immediately, Bruno became a crucial part of the team and so far, he scored 20 times in 57 appearances while providing 14 assists at the same time. His impressive performances on the pitch earned him a new contract with Dinamo a month ago, where he reportedly doubled his salary, while the manager of the Croatia national football team, Zlatko Dalic, made him number one striker. Today, many feel that Bruno filled the void that was made when Mario Mandžukić retired last summer and that he is ready to become a new number one striker for the national team and follow in the footsteps of Davor Šuker, Eduardo da Silva and already mentioned Mandžukić.
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