Dinamo made a masterful start to their fifth Champions League campaign. In the opening match of the competition, they impressively defeated Arsenal 2-1 with solid, intelligent and attacking football. The Blues led 2-0 and were on the verge of a third goal.

Paulo Machado played a heel pass about twenty metres out to Junior Fernandes, who sent a through ball to the left flank for Josip Pivarić, who raced towards goal. Goalkeeper David Ospina saved the shot, but only as far as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, off whom the ball deflected into the net. In the 40th minute, the Gunners were reduced to ten men after Olivier Giroud earned his second yellow card for a foul on Ivo Pinto, before Fernandes headed home from Machado's corner in the 58th minute for a magnificent 2-0! In the 79th minute, Theo Walcott capitalised on a counter-attack and calmly placed the ball past Maksimir goalkeeper Eduardo from the left side.

We also remember Ante Ćorić's miss in the 5th minute of stoppage time when he found himself completely alone against Ospina in a one-on-one situation, but Arsenal's goalkeeper somehow managed to scramble the ball away. The Blues also hit the post early in the second half... Goalkeeper Eduardo also delivered an excellent performance.

The extent of Dinamo's pressure is illustrated by the fact that Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger made a triple substitution in the 64th minute: Mikel Arteta, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Kieran Gibbs came off, while Francis Coquelin, Theo Walcott and Joel Campbell entered the game. Dinamo was led from the bench by Zoran Mamić, while his counterpart on the opposing side, Wenger, fielded a very strong lineup at Maksimir Stadium: the recovered Mathieu Debuchy, Laurent Koscielny, Kieran Gibbs, Santi Cazorla, Mesut Özil, Alexis Sanchez, Olivier Giroud, Mikel Arteta, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain... All of them appeared in the starting XI, with Theo Walcott later coming on as a substitute.