butina began his professional career with dinamo zagreb, debuting for the first team on 23 may 1993, when the club was known as "croatia zagreb". however, he struggled to make an impact at the club at the time when dražen ladić was the club's longtime first-choice goalkeeper. in the mid-1990s, he had several loan spells with lower-tier croatian sides karlovac, samobor and slaven belupo. in the late 1990s, he became a regular member of the squad, and, following ladić's retirement in 2000, took over as dinamo's first choice goalkeeper in the 2000–01 season.