FC Dallas striker Petar Musa speaks about his childhood in Croatia, making the transition from Liga Portugal to MLS, and plenty more (Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images)
With 3.8 million people and a territory of 21,851 square miles, Croatia is one of the smallest countries in Europe, but it’s nevertheless emerged as a heavyweight on the global footballing scene. In their first-ever World Cup as an independent nation, Croatia made it all the way to the 1998 FIFA World Cup semifinals and took home the bronze medal after edging the Netherlands in the third-placed match. Twenty years later, Croatia became the second-smallest country by population (after Uruguay) and the second-smallest by land size (after the Netherlands) to reach a World Cup Final, where they lost to France. In 2022, the Vatreni knocked out Japan and Brazil before losing to eventual champions Argentina in the semifinals, claiming yet another bronze after beating Morocco in the third-placed match.
A Croatian player has won the UEFA Champions League in every single year between 2013 and 2024, with the sole exception of Manchester City’s 2023 triumph (City would atone for their sins by purchasing Croatian players Mateo Kovačić and Joško Gvardiol in the following weeks for a combined €129m). What’s more, Luka Modrić (Real Madrid), Josip Stanišić (Bayern Munich), Luka Ivanušević (Feyenoord), and Ivan Perišić (PSV Eindhoven) all have the chance to continue that trend this year.
It’s difficult to find an explanation for Croatia’s overperformance, but perhaps the best answer is the culture: It’s a football-mad country where everyone lives and breathes The Beautiful Game. It doesn’t take much to find evidence for this theory: you can find it in Croatia’s taverns and restaurants, where supporters pack the locale to the brim to watch the national team. And you can also find it in their grass pitches and concrete jungles, where countless Croatian children lace up their cleats and play football against their friends.
“We are not that big of a country, but we have a lot of talents and a lot of big players,” stated Croatia international Petar Musa in an exclusive RG interview. “In our country, the main sport is football, everyone wants to be a footballer. If you ask any kid, they’ll tell you they just want to be a footballer when they grow up…it’s in our DNA.”
A Cut Above the Rest in Czechia
Born in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, Musa was introduced to football by his mother Jagoda, who played for the Croatia national team. From that point onwards, he had his heart set on becoming an attacking player, idolizing legendary strikers like Zlatan Ibrahimović and Mario Mandžukić and plying his trade at Hrvatski Dragovoljac’s academy before joining NK Zagreb in 2007.
He spent a decade at NK Zagreb until eventually leaving his motherland in 2017 and heading to Czech giants Slavia Prague. Musa was imminently dispatched to FK Viktoria Žižkov, scoring 12 goals in 37 matches in the Czech second tier before moving to Slovan Liberec in February 2019. He continued to bang in the goals in the Czech top-flight, prompting Slavia Prague to recall him from his loan and integrate him into the first team. The Croatian striker took the opportunity by the scruff of its neck, emerging as Slavia’s attacking talisman and finishing atop the league’s scoring charts with 14 goals alongside Libor Kozák. In doing so, he became the youngest player to achieve the Czech Golden Boot at 22 years and 122 days old.
Despite attracting interest from across Europe, he chose to remain in Prague and continue his progress. However, his goal-scoring numbers would dry up the following season, causing Slavia to loan him to Bundesliga side Union Berlin in February 2021. After failing to convince in Germany’s top-flight, Musa decided to try his luck in Portugal and join Boavista for the 2021/22 season. He made his first start for the club on September 12, 2021, bagging a 92nd-minute equalizer to snatch a point against Portimonense. Musa unleashed his full potential in the Primeira Liga and became an indispensable figure in the Axadrezados’ attack with 12 goals and 4 assists in 31 appearances, steering them to a 12th-placed finish.
“I was really young when I went to Germany. I needed time to adapt, and I couldn’t show my full potential there.
I then moved to Portugal, another country that loves football and that is a factory of talent. From my first day in Portugal, I saw that they liked to play with the ball and that there wasn’t so much running off the ball, which was different. I felt like I belonged there, and it was a good season for me. The people there are really nice, the food is also really nice, and I also had another Balkan teammate (Ilija Vukotić), who spoke my language and helped me a lot. The whole environment around me at Boavista was perfect, on and off the pitch. It was easy for me to feel good, and if you feel good off the field, you will feel even better on the field. Everything was really nice, and I really enjoyed my time in Portugal.”
Shining as a Supersub in Benfica
After a breakthrough campaign in Porto, the stage was set for Musa to secure a big move and take his talents to Lisbon, with Portuguese giants Benfica signing him to a five-year deal. Boavista triggered Musa’s €3.5 million buyout option before selling him to Benfica for €5 million, in addition to also receiving half of Ricardo Mangas' economic rights and acquiring half of Vukotić’s economic rights for €500,000.
Musa made his league debut for Benfica on August 27, 2022, providing an assist and winning a penalty in a 3-0 victory against his former side Boavista. He spent the season as a backup center forward to Gonçalo Ramos, but that didn’t stop him from becoming a vital cog off the bench. Musa impressed in his limited game-time under Benfica coach Roger Schmidt, even convincing Croatia manager Zlatko Dalić to give him his international debut in March 2023 – he would play five more times for Croatia in 2023 before failing to make a single appearance in 2024.
“I’m a really tough guy who always has confidence in himself. It’s in the Croatian culture, we are very proud people.
Even if something is not going well, you stay proud and confident, so I never had problems with confidence. Obviously, if you’re playing well and doing a good job on the pitch, you become even more confident and it’s easier to score goals. When you have a good role in the team, it makes you think calmly so that even if you mess up, there’s always the next action. You need to be focused on the next stage and forget as quickly as possible what happened.”
Capable of stretching defenses with his piercing runs, hassling the defenders with his incessant pressing, dominating aerial duels, holding the ball up with his back to goal, and catching the goalkeeper by surprise with a powerful first-time shot, Musa was quickly making his mark for club and country. He substantiated the promising sensations from his debut Liga Portugal campaign by racking up 11 goals and 3 assists in 41 appearances in the 2022/23 season. With one goal every 97 minutes, he led the entire league for scoring frequency (well ahead of second-placed Mehdi Taremi at 120), and proved instrumental as Benfica captured their first league title in four years.
“It was not an easy situation for me because Ramos was having an amazing season and scoring so many goals. Schmidt decided to play him instead of me and there was nothing I could do about that, I just had to keep working harder to try to convince him to put me in the starting eleven. I was not playing regularly, but I was working really hard and staying patient, and whenever I’d jump into the match, I’d often score. That makes me very happy because hard work always pays off. I was training really hard to get my opportunity and grasp it with both hands. I was always waiting for my opportunity and at the end of the season, we lifted the trophy altogether as a team, which was the most important thing.”
New Beginnings in Texas
Musa kicked off the 2023/24 season by beating Porto in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira and scoring four goals in his first six matches, but he never quite managed to fill the void left by Ramos (who joined Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2023) and establish himself as Benfica’s starting center forward. Desperate for a new opportunity, Musa received his fair share of suitors from Europe’s biggest leagues, but instead, he decided to head across the Atlantic and join FC Dallas, who paid a club-record $9.7 million transfer fee, rising to $13 million with potential add-ons.
“I reached that stage in my career where I wanted to go to a team where I could have some consistency and feel the trust of the coach even more. I wanted to play as much as possible and have a good season, I wasn’t unhappy at Benfica, I was just looking for a club where I could play more. That’s why I made the decision to go to Dallas. I was talking to Dallas’ coach and owner, who explained their entire project to me and left me very impressed. We didn’t have a great season as a team, but individually, I had a very good year. After my last season, I’ve shown everyone who doubted me leaving Benfica for MLS that it was the right move. I haven’t regretted it one bit.”
It didn’t take long for him to justify their investment, grabbing a goal on his MLS debut against CF Montréal on March 2 and bagging the first hat-trick of his career on June 19 vs. Minnesota United. Across a season that saw Dallas go through two different managers and finish 11th in the Western Conference, Musa was a rare breath of fresh air. He scored 16 goals – 11 more than any other Dallas player – in 30 appearances, leading the team in Expected Goals (9.94), goal contributions (19), shots per game (2.9), shots on target per game (1.0) and various other metrics. However, it wasn’t enough to see Dallas qualify for the postseason.
The Moose is Loose
During his first year in Texas, Musa staked his claim as one of the best strikers in MLS and achieved the best goal-scoring return of his career. The Croatian established himself as a fan favorite in Frisco and earned his own nickname: The Moose. Every time he scores a goal, he places both of his thumbs on his side temples and holds up his other eight fingers, mimicking a moose’s antlers.
“I have a nice connection with the fans. They always come to support us, and I’m just trying to make them happy and not be disappointed like last year. That’s the most important thing, that’s why they come to the stadium and pay for tickets.”
There have been some differences to get used to, like the lack of walkability. Petar is used to living downtown and exploring the urban scene on foot in cities like Zagreb, Prague, Berlin, Porto, and Lisbon, whereas in Dallas, you need a car to go anywhere, even if it’s just to grab a cup of coffee. However, perhaps the biggest adjustment in Petar’s life has been fatherhood. Two months after arriving in Texas, Petar welcomed a baby boy – Niki – into the world alongside his wife Laura.
“Becoming a father has made me more calm. Sometimes, you’ll lose a game or have a bad training session and you’ll be upset, but then you come home and see the smile on his face, and your mood immediately changes. I’m enjoying every second of being a father and a husband. I love football, but there’s nothing to compare to this happiness of being a father.”
It has been 23 years since Musa picked up a football for the first time. Since then, he’s played professional football in Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Portugal, and the United States, but he’s never once allowed that childhood passion to abandon him. He wears this infectious zeal like a badge of honor – literally and figuratively – with a tattoo of a four-year-old Petar holding a football adorning his left shoulder.
As he approaches 27 years of age, Petar Musa is taking advantage of his new surroundings, relishing the warm climate and mouth-watering Texan barbecue, and enjoying the best form of his entire career. Once a backup at Benfica, he’s now one of the first names on the team sheet at Dallas, and after an offseason that saw them lose various key attacking figures like Jesús Ferreira and Alan Velasco, Musa is now carrying even more of the goal-scoring burden on his shoulders under new manager Eric Quill. And on Saturday, when Dallas play their first official match in 126 days, they’ll be counting on him to deliver the goods and lead them to victory against local rivals Houston Dynamo.
Zach Lowy is a freelance football journalist who has written for leading outlets like FotMob, BetUS, Apuestas Deportivas, and who has appeared as a radio and television guest for BBC, SiriusXMFC, and various other platforms. After pursuing a global sports journalism degree at George Washington University, Zach has been able to tap into his multilingual background and interview major footballing figures in Spanish and Portuguese as well as operate the weekly podcast 'Zach Lowy's European Football Show' on BET Central.
