Rudes

Rudeš spent the 2023/24 season in Croatia's top flight without a ground fit to host it. ŠRC Rudeš, the club's home in the Zagreb district of the same name, seats around 1,600, and when Prva HNL rules called for something bigger, the team played its home matches at Kranjčevićeva, an 8,850-seat stadium across the city.

Rudeš was founded on 1 January 1957 and has kept its name and its blue colours ever since, which is where the nickname Plavi comes from. For most of its history it stayed in the lower tiers of Croatian football, winning the regional 4. HNL Središte in 2002/03 and the 3. HNL West in 2008/09 before the breakthrough that mattered: the Prva NL title in 2016/17, which sent Rudeš into the top flight for the first time. A second Prva NL title in 2022/23 brought it back after relegation.

Robert Prosinečki took charge of the side for that 2023/24 top-flight campaign, and Josip Šimunić became club president in 2023. Mario Budimir remains the club's top scorer in the Prva HNL, with 13 goals in that first 2017/18 season. In the city, Rudeš measures itself against NK Lokomotiva, a rivalry local press call the gradski obračun rather than any settled derby name.

What Rudeš has not done is win anything at the national level — no championship, no Croatian Cup.