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| Alen Halilović |
Alen Halilović (born 18 June 1996) is a Croatian footballer who plays for Spanish club FC Barcelona B as an attacking midfielder.
Being the Prva HNL's youngest ever goalscorer and also the youngest ever debutant for the Croatian national team, he is also considered to be one of the most promising young talents of European football.
On 27 March 2014, FC Barcelona reached an agreement with Dinamo Zagreb for a five-year transfer to the club.
On 27 September 2012, he made his debut for the first team in the "Eternal derby" win over Hajduk Split (3–1), when he replaced Sammir for the final ten minutes of the match. This made him the youngest debutant in the history of Dinamo Zagreb, at the age of 16 years and 101 days. In the next round match against Slaven Belupo, he again came off the bench and scored the final goal in a 4–1 victory. This made him the youngest goalscorer in the history of the league, at the age of 16 years and 112 days, breaking the record set in November 2010 by his former teammate, Mateo Kovačić.
In November 2012, he scored his second league goal for Dinamo in a 5–0 win against NK Zadar, scoring a goal from outside of the box on an assist provided by Kovačić. In his first professional season with Dinamo, he also managed to participate in UEFA Champions League. On 24 October 2012, he made his European bow in the 90th minute of the encounter against French giants, Paris Saint-Germain, in the Maksimir Stadium, coming on as a substitute for Kovačić. Thus he became the club's youngest player ever to feature in a Champions League match, and second youngest player in the history of UEFA Champions League.
On 27 March 2014, FC Barcelona reached an agreement with Dinamo Zagreb for Halilović to join Barcelona in July 2014 at the start of the summer transfer window. Halilović signed a five-year contract with an initial fee of €2.2 million, which would increase if he secures a spot in the first team. He will start his Barcelona career in the club's reserve team, FC Barcelona B. On the transfer he commented "I am delighted and it’s hard to find the words to describe how I feel. Thank you very much to Dinamo, who will always be my first love and the club where my dreams started coming true. I would like to thank all the Dinamo youth coaches and all of the fans. Of course, Barcelona is something special, I have loved the club since I was a kid and it will be an honour to be able to play for Barça.
But before that, I want to win the double with Dinamo and then I’ll start concentrating on my new club". On 2 April 2014, FIFA announced that Barcelona would be banned from buying players until summer 2015 after illegally signing underaged players, putting the move in doubt. On 23 April 2014, FC Barcelona's transfer ban was suspended pending an appeal, allowing the transfer to go ahead for the time being. On 2 May 2014, Halilović signed for Barcelona on a five-year contract for €2.2 million.
Halilović made his first appearance for Barcelona's main squad on 15 January 2015, replacing Adama Traoré for the last 28 minutes of a 4–0 away win against Elche CF in the last 16 of the Copa del Rey.
Halilović represented Croatian national team at various youth levels. In March 2013, he was a member of Croatia U17 that qualified for the European Under-17 Championship in Slovakia. On 10 June 2013, Halilović made his debut for the senior team against Portugal in a friendly match as a 50th-minute substitute for Ivan Strinić. At age 16, he became the youngest debutant in the history of Croatia.
Source: wikipedia.org
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