Filip Krovinović is a Croatian professional footballer who plays for Portuguese club Benfica as a midfielder.
Club career
NK Zagreb
Krovinović, coming from the NK Zagreb academy, made his Prva HNL debut against GNK Dinamo Zagreb on 5 April 2013, signing a 5-year professional contract with the team soon after. In summer 2015 due to increasing financial problems at NK Zagreb and transfer window moving towards the end, more intensively was media rumor of transfer move to Dinamo Zagreb and especially to Hajduk Split. But compensation fee of €400,000 plus a percentage on future transfer NK Zagreb was seeking were not realized. In the end, both Krovinović and NK Zagreb accepted transfer bid from Portugal.
On 30 August 2015, Krovinović signed a four-year contract with Portuguese Primeira Liga club Rio Ave. He went to Portugal at the late end of summer transfer window and joined Rio Ave team who by then had a series of positive results. Regular Croatian under 21 national team member made his debut for Rio Ave on 10 October 2015 in starting eleven against Vitória de Guimarães in home league cup match won by Rio Ave 3–2. In next three months Krovinović gathered only seven appearances, one of which was the away league cup match on 29 December 2015 against Leixões that Rio Ave won 2–1. For a second time that season Krovinović played all 90 minutes being one of the match heroes. Young midfielder was in process of adjusting to demands of Primeira Liga and Rio Ave gradually receiving more and more playing time. The next two months Krovinović managed to gather 10 more appearances while scoring twice. His first goal for Rio Ave came on 13 January 2016 in quarter-final national cup match against Estoril in which he scored second goal of the game in 3–0 home victory seeing Rio Ave progress to semi-finals of Portuguese Cup. A week later he scored his second goal in a 1–1 home league cup draw with Belenenses. Last appearance in 2015–16 season, making a total of 17 appearances in his first season with Rio Ave was on 7 March 2016 in round 25 of Primeira Liga against Estoril as a half-time substitute in home defeat 3–1. Since then, Krovinović was oddly removed from starting eleven and even from the bench in most occasions, being so excluded from the squad for the rest of the season and its end. Despite the fact that he did not played in any Rio Ave official match for next three months, Krovinović made a great progress advancing in various technical and tactical segments bracing himself for very fast, technically polished football played in Primeira Liga. With the end of 2015–16 campaign and replacement of coach Pedro Martins by coach Capucho on 20 May 2016, Krovinović received a number 10 jerseyat the beginning of the 2016–17 season, thus acknowledging high expectations the club had for him in becoming one of the more important players for the team in an upcoming season. With the arrival of new coach Luís Castro, Krovinović started to play more scoring two goals this season so far.
