10 GNK Dinamo senior players ineligible for Arsenal clash

GNK Dinamo travel to face Arsenal in a Champions League fixture on Wednesday, but quite a few members of their current first-team squad are ineligible for the game.

GNK Dinamo have recently undergone a change of manager, appointing Fabio Cannavaro, and they’ve made a couple of moves in the transfer market to attempt to support the new man in charge.

The problem is that Champions League squads are fixed from the start of the League Phase until 23:00 GMT on February 6th, 2025. Dinamo can’t add their new players to the squad until then, so they’re ineligible to face Arsenal on Wednesday.

There is one exception, as clubs are entitled to register an unlimited number of players to their ‘List B’ during the season, and new additions can be made until the day before a match.

But there are very strict requirements for eligibility to List B. You must be born on or after January 1st, 2003, and you must have been eligible to play for the club for two years since your 15th birthday.

Essentially, we’re talking about a young academy player returning from a loan. Most other players wouldn’t qualify for List B.

With all that in mind, let’s have a look at Dinamo’s list of ineligible players.

Goalkeeper Nikola Cavlina returned from a loan to NK Osijek this month, but he wasn’t named in Dinamo’s Champions League squad at the start of the season and he’s too old for List B. So he’s ineligible.

Faris Krkalic, another goalkeeper, is also ineligible despite being with Dinamo all season. He’s too old for List B as well, and he wasn’t initially named in the main squad due to a lack of spaces. Only 25 players can be named on List A, and he wasn’t one of them.

New signings Niko Galesic (centre-back) and Bartol Franjic (defensive midfielder) are both out, after joining from HNK Rijeka and VfL Wolfsburg this month. Galesic is Dinamo’s joint-third most expensive signing of all time, but he can’t play this game.

Centre-back Mauro Perkovic is unfortunate to miss out as well. He’s young enough for List B, but he hasn’t spent enough time with the club to be eligible. He had a knee injury early in the season, so Dinamo opted not to include him in the main squad. He’s fit now, but can’t be added.

It’s a similar story for right-back Sadegh Moharrami, who was injured at the start of the season and thus left out of the squad.

The Iran international faced off against Bukayo Saka and England at the 2022 World Cup, he’s fit, and he played their last few domestic league games. But it’s too late to join the Champions League’s League Phase.

Centre-back Dino Peric, left-backs Petar Bockaj and Jan Oliveras, and returning loan winger Luka Menalo were all left out of the squad at the start of the season due to lack of available spaces.

In all, that’s 10 ineligible players. Two new signings, two returning loanees, two players who recovered from injuries after the squad was named, and four players who simply couldn’t fit in the 25-player senior squad back in September.

The big misses will be new signings Galesic and Franjic, but Cannavaro will simply have to do without them for the final two League Phase games.