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Zvonimir Boban isn’t known for kowtowing in the face of despotic authority, as Football Daily readers of a certain age will remember all too well. In 1990, as the 21-year-old skipper of Dinamo Zagreb, he infamously got involved in a pre-match riot between supporters of his own team and those of Red Star Belgrade, after spotting a policeman getting heavy-handed with a Dinamo fan on the pitch. In full kit and on live TV, Boban flattened the officer with a flying kick in an act of violence that is credited as a spark that would light the fire of Croatian independence, declared just over a year later. “I don’t regret it at all,” Boban said in an interview with the Financial Times in 2021. “It was a fight for freedom against the regime,” added the man who claims not to like talking about the famous kick, but is always amenable to fielding questions from interviewers who feel not asking about it would be akin to quizzing Neil Armstrong about his life’s work and not mentioning the moon.
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