Zagreb- Branko Ivankovic has quit as coach of quit Croatian football champions Dinamo Zagreb, two days before a big UEFA Cup game against Spartak Moscow, the club said on Tuesday.

"We talked daily and decided that the path we were heading is not good so we decided mutually to go separate ways. We just weren't happy - neither the club nor the coach," Dinamo's sport director Zoran Mamic told journalists in Zagreb.

The Croatian public is puzzled by Dinamo's decision to part ways with Ivankovic ahead of "the game of the decade" with Spartak, with victory a big step towards the knockout stages.

Dinamo's board said, in a statement posted on its website, that Ivankovic's deputy Marijan Vlak will lead the club until the end of the first half of the season.

Ivankovic was Dinamo's coach from November 2006 until January 2008 but then resigned due to his differences with the club's vice president Zdravko Mamic. He returned to Dinamo in May on a four-year contract. (dpa)