Holding the glass MVP trophy after Como–Leipzig, Martin Baturina looked almost nonplussed. He inspected the crystal sphere like someone double-checking whether the night at the Sinigaglia was actually his. A curious image after a match like that. While Baturina seemed to be asking himself if he belonged on that pedestal, the pitch had already settled the matter: Como and Baturina look entirely at home in the Champions League. Beyond the initial shock of the 4–1 Fàbregas handed Leipzig, nothing about it felt like an anomaly. Technically, tactically, Baturina delivered the complete spec sheet for a modern attacking midfielder. Seventy-six minutes: a goal, an assist, three created chances—two of them massive—seven passes into the final third, six of eight ground duels won. High-grade metrics, but still inadequate to describe his gravity on the pitch. He was not merely the man who scored or the one who slipped Douvikas through for the second. He provided the internal logic to how Como ran through Leipzig.
That is the compelling part of his trajectory. Three goals in three games—Napoli, Genoa, Leipzig—are the headline numbers, the clips that flood social feeds. They represent only the surface menu. The real evolution happened further back. For years, Baturina was Dinamo Zagreb’s prize prospect. The classic ten, the guy for the last twenty yards, the neat turn, the needle-threading pass. A player to be found between the lines, close to the box, where technique could turn into end-product. Como bought those traits, then demanded something structural: handle pressure, take ownership of the whole system. Baturina responded by rendering positional tags irrelevant. He comes deep now. He shows up for the initial build-up, offers an escape hatch under press, and has refined a devastating body feint. A micro-movement, the defender’s weight committed to the wrong hip, an exit path opened the other way. It carries distant echoes of Busquets—different geometry, different cadence—in how he uses his frame to dislodge a marker.
Once Baturina bypasses that first line, the phase shifts gears. He isn’t recycling possession or claiming empty territory. He accelerates into space, turning build-up directly into vertical threat. He has developed an elite sense for turning an aggressive press back on the opponent. That timing informs his incisive passing. The assist for Douvikas was clinical: receive, spot the channel, deliver on the stride. Less a flash of brilliance than a player reading the play two moves ahead. The boundary line between a player who invents and one who governs. Fàbregas seems to have recognized the currency here. Como’s midfield relies on continuous rotation, position-swapping, fluid roles. Nailing down a starter’s shirt in that setup is brutal. Baturina did it because his versatility ceased to be a tactical accommodation and became core leverage.Which is why the scoring streak carries weight. It isn’t a flash of form; it signals that the growth from late last season is holding, now backed by concrete output. The goal against Leipzig, on the biggest stage, felt like a natural conclusion.
The shift is structural, not numerical. Baturina is no longer just Zagreb’s golden boy with a trick in his boots. He is a midfielder operating across every phase, the profile that doesn’t wait to be found because he creates his own gravity in the match. Which makes his mild disbelief with the MVP trophy fit so well. While he was busy doubting his right to it, the game had already moved on. The quiet moment of a player realizing he isn’t a prospect anymore. It mirrors the broader scope of Como itself. Mirwan Suwarso’s board bought him raw; Fàbregas integrated him incrementally, nursed the adjustment, built the foundation. Capital and patience yielding returns: a dominant second half of last season in Serie A, now translated directly into European authority. A team built to contest the league and dictate terms on Tuesday nights. In fact, they’ve already started.