however, right from the beginning of the 1993–94 season he established himself as a first team regular and was one of the key players of the squad in one of the most successful periods in club's history. in the next six seasons šimić helped the club win another four titles as well as four croatian cups. in this period šimić also experienced his first taste of european football when dinamo (known as "croatia zagreb" from 1992 to 2000) played auxerre in a 1994–95 cup winners' cup first round tie as he appeared a 3–1 home win at maksimir on 29 september 1994. he regularly appeared in all of the club's european campaigns over the following four seasons and took part in some of the club's biggest achievements in recent times, such as reaching the 1997–98 uefa cup round of 16 (where they were knocked out by atlético madrid 2–1 on aggregate) and group stage of the 1998–99 champions league (after knocking out celtic 3–1 on aggregate in the second qualifying round).