Bruises and scratches as visible traces of the difficult away trip to Bijelo Brdo illustrate the rough "welcome" for Dinamo B's young players to the First League. Maksimir's second team visited BSK in the opening league round, where the hosts won 1-0 on an artificial turf pitch in a match where the Blues had the initiative and ball possession for the most part, while the hosts threatened from set pieces. The next test is scheduled for Saturday at 3:45 PM when Dinamo B will visit Orijent at Krimeja Stadium in Rijeka in the 2nd round of the SuperSport First League.

– We analyzed what and how we could have done better in the last match. When the opponent plays a low block, we need to have quicker ball circulation to get into a situation where some player is free. BSK plays exactly that low block, on transition, quite solid, rough... There were several really rough tackles, and the referee ultimately received a negative rating. The boys have to learn to deal with that too. We also extracted some good things, we were good, dominant in possession, we wanted to impose ourselves as much as possible. Our wish is to be more concrete from that possession, and that's what we lacked against BSK, we worked on that a bit more this week – emphasized coach Jerko Leko.

Orijent is a significantly different profile of team.

– Against Orijent I expect a different match, because that's a solid team that likes to play. They have several more experienced players, from my former teammate Franko Andrijašević, Mario Tadejević... I'm interested to see how our boys will react after everything.

Dinamo, despite the markedly rough play of the hosts, still dominated ball possession. Was that detail, as an important part of football development, the biggest plus from the previous match?

– Yes, I'm pleased that they showed character, confidence, that they were dominant. Besides that, we didn't give the opponent chances either, the hosts hit the crossbar from a free kick, previously scored also after a set piece... That's more or less it. We had some chances through Marko Zebić and Mislav Ćutuk, but we weren't lucky for the ball to go into the goal. These are matches with one or two chances, the boys have to learn to play such duels too. The difference between such matches in juniors and seniors is that among your peers you manage to score and push the ball into the goal because you're physically dominant. Although, of course, there were cases like in Varaždin where we didn't succeed. In nine out of 10 such matches you'll win, while in seniors it goes to five out of 10. I say, I'm pleased with the character, we had confidence, dominated in the greater part of the match. I'm glad that our boys showed they can do it, there will be different matches, but they have to adapt and grow.

How much was the artificial turf an important topic for that first away match?

– I can't say it was necessarily negative for us because we're good in our play. Even their coach said he didn't want to press us high because he knows we're good and that we know how to get out of the block. It's not decisive for us, we prefer when the pitch is better. We'll see what it will be like at Krimeja. There used to be quite a good grass pitch there. On Wednesday they played a cup match against Radnik from Križevci, the pitch didn't look ideal. But whatever it will be, it will be the same for both them and us.

What's the situation with the squad?

– Sven Šunta is returning to us from the first team, he will play at Krimeja. Fuzy Taylor is joining us, Leonardo Perković is returning from injury. We didn't take anyone from the U-19 team unlike the previous match when Nikola Radnić, Kaloyan Bozhkov and Jeon Jin-Woo were with us. Now we have Šunta, Perković and Taylor. Šunta came to get minutes, to help us and grow through playing time and thereby become more competitive for the first team – added coach Leko.