Since its foundation in 1945 until the end of the 1990–91 season Dinamo played in the Yugoslav league system, and during this time won four 1.
Bukovi was in charge of Dinamo from 1945 to 1947, and over the following three decades managers were mostly former players from Građanski (Mirko Kokotović, Franjo Glaser, Bernard Hügl, Milan Antolković, Ivan Jazbinšek, Gustav Lechner, Branko Zebec and Stjepan Bobek), HAŠK (Bruno Knežević, Zlatko Čajkovski), and Concordia (Bogdan Cuvaj).
There were only five non-Yugoslav managers in the history of the club: Márton Bukovi (1945–47 and 1960–61), Karl Mütsch (1947–48), Osvaldo Ardiles (1999), Ivaylo Petev (2016–17) and Fabio Cannavaro (2024–present).
Ivica Horvat is the only manager who won European silverware with Dinamo, leading them to triumph in the 1967 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final, although he was in charge only for the final tie against Leeds United as Branko Zebec, who was in charge throughout the 1966–67 season, had left the club in the summer of 1967.
Dinamo's only other European final came five years earlier in the 1962–63 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, when they were led by Milan Antolković.