He regularly appeared in all of the club's European campaigns over the following four seasons and took part in some of the club's biggest achievements in recent times, such as reaching the 1997–98 UEFA Cup round of 16 (where they were knocked out by Atlético Madrid 2–1 on aggregate) and group stage of the 1998–99 Champions League (after knocking out Celtic 3–1 on aggregate in the second qualifying round). Other notable Dinamo players and Šimić's teammates from that era were Silvio Marić, Dražen Ladić, Igor Cvitanović, Mark Viduka and Robert Prosinečki, as well as Krunoslav Jurčić and Goran Jurić with whom he formed a solid defensive partnership. In his six and a half years with the club, Šimić earned a total of 140 league appearances and scored 14 goals. In the meantime Šimić's former coach at Dinamo, Miroslav Blažević, was appointed Croatia manager in 1994. In 1996, impressed by his string of good performances, Blažević called him up and, after playing 16 games for Croatia's youth teams, Šimić earned his first full international cap on 13 March 1996 in a friendly against South Korea, coming on as a substitute for Igor Štimac. Šimić quickly became a first team regular in the national team under Blažević, and went on to play in six 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, as well as six matches at the final tournament itself in France, where Croatia eventually won third place. Internazionale 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). Under coach Marcello Lippi, Šimić had his Serie A debut in a 2–0 win against Venezia at San Siro on 10 January 1999. By the end of his first season in Italy, Šimić earned a total of 17 appearances and scored 2 goals for Internazionale. In the following couple of seasons Šimić's services were regularly used, until the 2001–02 season, when he had only 12 league and 8 European appearances. and in June 2002 Internazionale and their cross-city rivals AC Milan agreed a player swap with Ümit Davala going in the opposite direction, which Šimić