Dejan Lovren

Dejan Lovren (Croatian pronunciation: [dějan lǒʋren]; born 5 July 1989) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Super League Greece club PAOK.

Lovren began his career at Dinamo Zagreb before moving to Lyon in January 2010. He spent three and a half seasons with the Ligue 1 team and won the 2012 Coupe de France before he signed for Southampton in 2013. After one season with Southampton, he joined Liverpool for £20 million. He went on to make 185 appearances for the club, winning the UEFA Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League in 2020, before joining Russian champions Zenit Saint Petersburg in July 2020. Within four months, he became the captain of the team, replacing Artem Dzyuba.

Having previously represented Croatia at various youth levels, Lovren made his senior debut in 2009 and went on to make over 70 appearances for his country. He was selected in Croatia's squads for the FIFA World Cup in 2014, 2018 (in which they were beaten finalists against France) and 2022, as well as UEFA Euro 2020.

Lovren was born to Bosnian Croat parents Silva (née Trgovčević) and Saša Lovren in Zenica, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina and spent his first years of life in the nearby village of Kraljeva Sutjeska. The family was displaced from their home due to the Bosnian War when Lovren was three years old; they eventually settled in Munich.

His family eventually had to leave as they did not possess necessary documentation to reside in Germany and settled in Karlovac, Croatia, 50 kilometres southwest of the capital city of Zagreb. Lovren stated that he initially found settling in Croatia difficult.

Lovren first played football in Germany with Munich-based BSC Sendling. After moving to Croatia, he played for local teams NK Ilovac and NK Karlovac as a youth before joining NK Dinamo Zagreb in 2004.^{[citation needed]}

On 10 May 2006, he made his debut for Dinamo in a Prva HNL match against NK Varteks. On 17 July 2006, Lovren was loaned to NK Inter Zaprešić for two seasons where he made 50 league appearances and scored one goal. Following his return from loan Lovren regularly featured in Dinamo's starting XI, appearing in 38 matches throughout the 2008–09 season and scoring three goals. In the 2009–10 season, he featured in all four of Dinamo's UEFA Champions League qualifiers against Pyunik Yerevan and Red Bull Salzburg, and managed to score a header against Pyunik.

In January 2010, Lovren signed for French Ligue 1 club Olympique Lyonnais for €8 million plus €1.5 million in incentives on a four-and-a-half-year contract. He made his competitive debut on 24 January 2010 in their 2–1 defeat to AS Monaco in the Coupe de France, playing the full match. His Ligue 1 debut came on 31 January in Lyon's 2–1 win at home against Paris Saint-Germain, once again playing the full 90 minutes. During the second half of the season, he made 10 appearances, mostly as a substitute. He was not allowed to participate in Lyon's matches in the UEFA Champions League that season as he had already played in the competition for Dinamo Zagreb.^{[citation needed]}