Top of the table clashes generally equate to tense atmospheres, but at the zenith of nationalist fervour in communist rule, a ball was not even kicked between the Croatian and Serbian sides.
Dinamo coach Josip Kuze and Boban, then the youngest captain in the club’s history at 18, were incensed at police indifference to Red Star fans' looting in the stadium, and consequently fierce attempts to stop Dinamo fans from invading the pitch.
Initially hit, protecting a fan on the ground being pummelled by riot police, Boban reacted.
"The hooligans from Belgrade were ruining our stadium. The police at the time, who were absolutely a regime police, did not respond at all," Boban later noted in Vuk Janic’s documentary, The Last Yugolsav Football Team.
Twenty-five years later, the brutal images of events at Maksimir remain as etched in the history of politics in the former Yugoslavia, as they do in its football history.
For nations as collectively gripped by football however, the game is very rarely a conduit for change, but merely a mirror of society.
Boban's act in the throes of panic seemed to serve as a microcosm for himself, as a footballer and individual.
A supremely talented midfielder, who grew to play a withdrawn role to accommodate for virtuosos around him at both club and international level, 'Zvone' was always viewed by the Croatian public as a leader, uncompromising in his beliefs and actions.
In the present day, it’s this same belief that has once again put Boban in the spotlight, amid the backdrop of alleged insider plunder that is crippling the domestic game in Croatia.
Dinamo Zagreb's dominance of the First Division is widely considered a direct consequence of the perceived hegemony held by the controversial Zdravko Mamic, club executive chairman and Croatian Football Federation (HNS) vice-president.
Mamic’s monopoly on the transfer market in Croatia, which is alleged to have affected selection in the national team, has translated into Dinamo’s triumph in the HNL becoming a near foregone conclusion.
This season, the undefeated Plavi are 12 points clear of second-placed Rijeka.
Subsequently its feeder team, Tomislav Mrcela’s Lokomotiva, keeps pace with Hajduk for the second UEFA Europa League spot in fourth.
So where does Boban fit in all this?
HNS president and former Vatreni team-mate Davor Suker, despite his election to the UEFA Executive Committee in March, is widely seen in local circles as a mere figurehead, while executive Damir Vrbanovic performs Mamic’s bidding.
Boban, who holds prominent roles as head of the board for Croatian sports daily Sportske Novosti and as a pundit for Sky Italia, has largely ignored multiple calls for an HNS leadership tilt.
In 2011, if Boban put his hand up, which never eventuated.
The volatile nature of administrative drama in Croatian football, along with Boban’s position at Sportske Novosti meant their journalists preferred to stay silent on the matter, when contacted by The World Game.
At present Boban appears unwilling to make any such manoeuvres, because he believes substantial change would not be implemented with those currently in position.
Mamic has nevertheless accused Boban of masterminding a plan for his downfall, through Silvio Maric, Igor Biscan and Dario Simic, who set up ‘For our Dinamo’, with the intent to create greater transparency and a more democratic election model for the Croatian champion.
as absent whenever the time came to roll up his sleeves, but still attempts to be a ‘moral vertical’.
Boban’s reluctance to officially run for the presidency was reaffirmed in March, but it hasn’t stopped him from commenting on the state of the game.
"I think it was Stimac who said I haven't soiled my name because I haven't been involved in Croatian football. That's exactly the point," he said.
"Working in Croatian football doesn't interest me, if the situation as it is favours one club and a hierarchy that imposes their interests on rest, so that the system in the end is possessed by one man.
“That's very bad for him in particular, and for the whole of Croatian football. This disparity and inability for dialogue is not normal."
Novi List’s Danko Radaljac was scathing of this tact.
“Zvonimir can do it all, but in the end he’s done nothing,” he wrote last week.
“For the good of Croatian football, all of us and yourself, spare us the sermons to which you have no right."
Boban, long considered a hero in the eyes of the Croatian public, is ultimately in a lose-lose situation.
If he remains in his current position he will be ostracised for not putting his neck on the line to administer change.
It will be even worse if he tries and fails.
Looking back at his decision to play for the Vatreni, and no longer for Yugoslavia, Boban once said: "History was happening before our eyes, and we had to follow her lead."
Now, whether he will be led into villainy remains to be seen.
