his good performances at the 1998 world cup and in the 1998–99 champions league attracted attention from some of europe's biggest clubs and he went on to join internazionale in january 1999 for a fee of 11 million euros, which was at the time dinamo's all-time transfer record (and to this day surpassed only by outgoing transfers of vedran ćorluka and eduardo in 2007 and luka modrić in 2008).