Everything you need to know about Borna Sosa

Club

11 Jul 2025

It’s time to introduce the latest signing of Crystal Palace’s 2025 summer transfer – Borna Sosa.

Our newest Eagle follows Argentina goalkeeper Walter Benitez through the door as the second Palace recruit of the summer.

Sosa joins from Dutch giants Ajax on a three-year contract, after spending two years with the Amsterdam club, having spent 2024/25 out on-loan with Torino in Italy.

Here is everything you need to know about the new man…

Experience at European level

Sosa first moved to previous club Ajax back in the summer of 2023, after five seasons in the Bundesliga with VfB Stuttgart.

Although Ajax enjoyed – by their standards – a somewhat difficult domestic campaign in his first season, they did compete in both the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Conference League.

Sosa made nine appearances in European competition, and featured on English soil twice, in ties with the Brighton and Aston Villa.

Despite being loaned out to Torino last season, Sosa was a consistent presence in the Italian side, featuring both as a left-back and on the left-side of midfield.

A versatile operator and trophy winner

From early on in his playing career, Sosa has looked equally comfortable in a back four or as a left wing-back, a role he regularly undertook at his first club, Dinamo Zagreb.

Born in the Prečko neighbourhood of Zagreb to Herzegovinian Croat parents, Sosa progressed from youth clubs to the academy at Zagreb.

After working through the academy at Plavi, Sosa was given a senior debut in 2015, playing as a wing-back under manager Zoran Mamić, aged just 17.

Only a year later he won his first senior title, playing the full 90 minutes of the final as Zagreb saw off Slaven Belupo 2-1 to claim the Croation Cup. Zagreb also won the league championship, with Sosa featuring twice towards the end of the campaign.

2017/18 was Sosa’s true breakthrough campaign as he became a consistent performer for Dinamo, as they again lifted the league and cup double, with the full-back contributing four assists.

With that brought the opportunity to move to one of Europe’s traditional ‘big five’ leagues for the first time. Sosa joined Bundesliga side Stuttgart, signing a five-year contract.

Although his first two seasons were impacted significantly by injury, he would become a regular in the 2020/21 campaign and was seen as a key player at Neckarstadion.

World Cup heroics

To date, Sosa has won 26 senior caps for Croatia. The first came in a goalless draw against Russia in a FIFA World Cup qualifier back in September 2021.

When the two sides met again just two months later, the Croats were just one win away from securing qualification for the 2022 tournament.

In the 81st minute of a tense contest, Sosa's pressure caused Russian defender Fyodor Kudryashov's own goal that decided the game and sent Croatia back to the World Cup.

The defender was subsequently selected in Croatia’s squad for the tournament, by which point he had his first outright senior international goal, having found the net in the 2-1 UEFA Nations League win over Denmark.

Once in Qatar, Sosa featured in five of Croatia’s seven games at the tournament, where they enjoyed securing a third place finish.

Along the way he and his teammates saw off both Japan and – memorably – Brazil via penalty shootouts. They eventually fell in the last four stage, to a Lionel Messi-inspired Argentina team who went onto lift the trophy.

But they won the bronze medal after defeating Morocco in the play-off match between the losing semi-finalists. Sosa would also be part of the squad that narrowly missed out on the Nations League title the following summer, Croatia losing to Spain in a dramatic penalty shootout.

Sosa now becomes the first Croatia international to switch the red and white of his country, for the red and blue of Crystal Palace. Welcome to South London, Borna!

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