Dani Olmo reveals he could have played for Croatia at 2018 World Cup

Dani Olmo has a close relationship with Croatian football, having spent the first years of his senior career at GNK Dinamo – but he is very much Spanish. And that is a fact that he made clear seven years ago, as he has recently revealed.

As per GQ (via MD), Olmo opened up on receiving an approach from the Croatian Football Federation before the 2018 World Cup, which he turned down in favour of waiting for his chance with La Roja, which ended up arriving the following year.

“I’m Spanish and that’s how I’ve always felt it. Croatia wanted to nationalise me for the 2018 World Cup. Maybe they offered me more security, but I knew that the opportunity was going to come from Spain. When I saw them reaching the final against France, I was very happy, but I never thought that I could have been there or that maybe I had made a mistake. I had been with the U21s and my dream was to play for Spain – you can’t change that for a World Cup.”

Olmo also spoke about the decision he made when in La Masia to swap Barcelona for Dinamo. He saw a much better opportunity in going to Croatia rather than staying put, and it has worked out in the end as he returned to Catalonia last summer.

“When Dinamo came for me, I was going to make the move from cadet to youth. The normal thing would have been to follow or go to a team in England, but my dream was to play for Barcelona. At that time, I didn’t feel that they were going to trust me in the future. Dinamo convinced me with a short and medium term project, I trained with professionals and I knew it was the best thing for me.”