L. Rimac

In April 2026, when Club Brugge came asking about him, Leo Rimac said no in public — he wanted to finish the season with Koper. In his first campaign of regular senior football, he ended it with 31 league appearances and nine goals in the Slovenian Prva Liga.

He had come to Koper that July on a free transfer, on a deal running to June 2028, after three years in the Dinamo Zagreb academy. Those years brought a 1. HNL Juniori title with the under-19s in 2023/24 and a run in the UEFA Youth League against Bayern Munich, Celtic and Barcelona. What they did not bring was senior football: one appearance in the Croatian First League, and that was all.

Before Zagreb he was at Olimpija Ljubljana, in the under-17s. Kranj, where he was born, is a little over half an hour up the road from the capital.

The international question took longer to settle. Rimac holds both Slovenian and Croatian citizenship, and he played for Croatia at three youth levels — 14 caps and five goals at under-17, then two apiece at under-18 and under-19. He then switched to Slovenia, and has since played for the under-21s in European Championship qualifying against Norway, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands and Israel.

The move to Koper also changed how he is valued: reported at €250,000 before, €1m by August 2026. He wears the number 10 and is comfortable with either foot. Into the 2026/27 season he had three goals from his first seven league games.