United And Chelsea Join 4 Other Clubs In Race To Sign £5M Rated Croatian Wonderkid

United And Chelsea Join 4 Other Clubs In Race To Sign £5M Rated Croatian Wonderkid

Manchester United are keeping tabs on NK Kustosija striker Dino Klapija, according to the Daily Mail.

The English tabloid reports that the Red Devils have joined Chelsea, AC Milan, Juventus, RB Leipzig and Barcelona in pursuing the teenager.

Klapija has moved around quite a bit over the past six months. Back in March, he left New York City’s academy to make the switch to Dinamo Zagreb.


However, he rejected an offer from the Croatian side to sign a professional contract and joined Kustosija instead in July. He has subsequently been training with the club’s senior team in pre-season.

Considering the amount of interest being shown in Klapija, though, there is now a distinct possibility that he will move to a fourth different team inside a year.

Klapija’s career up until now

The striker was actually born in the United States, going on to join New York City after growing up in North Hempstead.

Klapija was called up to play for the USA at youth level, making appearances for the Under 16s before switching his allegiance to Croatia. Under 17 manager Robert Jarni then handed the youngster his debut before his 16th birthday in a friendly against Montenegro in December last year. His performances for his country then attracted interest from United and a host of other clubs.

How much would the forward cost United?

The Mail report that some teams are prepared to pay upwards of £5m for the 16-year-old, despite the fact that he hasn’t made his debut at club level yet.

At this stage, it is believed that RB Leipzig are the frontrunners to secure Klapija’s services. Considering how good the Red Bull teams are in terms of youth recruitment, United will be aware that beating the German club to the young Croatian’s signature would be a big coup.

David Tully

David Tully

David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for National World's Football News Network.