My beginnings were very cheerful and playful. From a young age, my only goal was to play football. When I was four to five years old, my mum took me to my first training session and then everyone told her that I was still too young and that I shouldn’t start playing yet, but in the end they let me play because we were very persistent.

I was really young, but I realised when I was five or six years old I was fast, and I had something the other children didn’t. I always played one against three in the kindergarten and I was quite good. Then, as the years passed, I realised I had talent, but my father always said that without work talent is nothing. So I worked hard every day to be where I am now.

I played with boys who were two or three years older than me. It just all revolved around football and around my family, who were my biggest support. I remember when I moved from LASK to Dinamo Zagreb. I was very young, only 12 years old. I started playing for Dinamo and thanks to football I made many friends.

It is normal in football and life to have both good and bad moments. When I was 14, I broke my leg and certainly my family suffered a lot because of it. My dad left his job in Austria, where we lived well, and moved to Croatia.

It was also a risk, but he had faith that I could achieve great things at Dinamo and in the end he was right. My dad has always been my biggest support, as have my whole family. They sacrificed a lot for me and I tried to repay them in another way, to give my best,to be a good son to them and to always have a great relationship with my family. I never missed anything, and like you said, in some crucial moments, family members become even more connected to each other, so a lot of good things happened to us in those bad moments as well.

One of those was meeting Luka Modric. I’ve been watching Luka’s matches since I was about ten, that’s when I started to understand football better. I had the opportunity to meet him twice. The first time I was nine or ten years old, and the second time I was about 14 years old, when Tottenham Hotspur signed him.

That’s when they said that it would be nice to take a picture with him because one day he will be my team-mate, and that came true. We really get along wonderfully and we will continue to be that way throughout our lives. I am glad to have met such a phenomenal person. Not only when it comes to what kind of player he is, we all know that, but as a person he is great, he is very calm and I really appreciate him. He is always down-to-earth, never conceited, he is an example to all us younger players and his career needs to be an example to us.

After I broke my leg, I came back very strong, and when I was 16 I went to the first team. That was my first step in professional football.My senior debut for Dinamo Zagreb was really special. It was a long time ago now! I scored in this game. It was a day to remember. My father was the happiest person because he suffered a lot when I was injured, and this goal was for him. I think he is now the proudest dad in the world.

I have always loved football, and loved playing it. I believed in myself. I would also like to say thank you to Dinamo, they gave me the opportunity. It wasn’t easy to deal with a 16-year-old boy because I wasn’t tactically nor mentally ready forthat level, and they forgave my bad sides and pushed me to become better. As for me, I did everything I could. I probably wasn’t 100 per cent ready at that time, but Dinamo believed in me and it paid off in the end for both me and them.