Miroslav Blažević

Miroslav "Ćiro" Blažević ( 9 February 1935 – 8 February 2023) was a Bosnian-Croatian professional football manager and player.

A former right winger, his professional playing career spanned from 1954 to 1966, during which he played for Dinamo Zagreb, Lokomotiva Zagreb, Sarajevo, Rijeka and Swiss clubs Sion and Moutier.

As a manager, his most successful period was with the Croatia national team, which he led to the quarter-finals in the 1996 European Championship and won third place at the 1998 FIFA World Cup. He also managed the following national teams: Switzerland, Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina and China Olympic. Blažević also had successful spells at Vevey, Sion, Lausanne-Sport, Rijeka, Dinamo Zagreb, Grasshopper Zürich, Prishtina, Osijek, Varteks, Zagreb, Shanghai Shenhua and Sloboda Tuzla.

From 29 March 1993 to 23 February 1995, he was president of Dinamo Zagreb.

Blažević maintained a colourful public persona in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, where he was reverently known as "trener svih trenera" (the "coach of all coaches").

Early life
Blažević was born to a Bosnian Croat family in Travnik, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina) on 9 February 1935. However, his parents did not register his birth until the next day, resulting in his official birthday being listed as 10 February. He was the youngest of eight children. In his teens he trained skiing.

Playing career
Blažević began his youth career in local team NK Travnik, after which he moved to Zagreb and joined Dinamo Zagreb. His career as a player was, by his own admission, average; therefore, he began his coaching career at a relatively early age. As a player, he played for Dinamo Zagreb, Lokomotiva Zagreb, Rijeka, Sarajevo, and Sion. He ended his career at Moutier in 1966 after gaining promotion to LNA.

Coaching in Switzerland
Blažević started as a coach where he ended his playing days in Switzerland. He first led FC Vevey (1968–71) then his former team FC Sion (1971–76), FC Lausanne-Sport (1976–79) and finally Switzerland's national team (as interim coach for two games in 1976). With Sion he won the Swiss Cup with club as a player and as manager in 1974.

NK Rijeka
Blažević returned to Yugoslavia in 1979 to coach Rijeka. Rijeka finished tenth in the 1979–80 season. Although not a very good league season the club got to the quarter-finals of 1979–80 European Cup Winners' Cup where they lost to Juventus. NK Rijeka's best European placement. Blažević also lost the 1979–80 Balkans Cup final to Studențesc București.

Success with Dinamo
Blažević took over Dinamo Zagreb on 11 December 1980, one of Yugoslavia's big four clubs (the other three being Hajduk Split, Red Star Belgrade and Partizan) in 1980. After a mediocre first season, in which Dinamo finished fifth, Blažević became an instant club legend in the 1981–82, winning the first Yugoslav league title for the Zagreb outfit after a 24-year drought.

Next year, Dinamo won the Yugoslav Cup and led a long battle with Partizan and Hajduk Split in the league. Partizan became 1983 champions and Blažević left Dinamo for the first time.

Grasshopper and Prishtina
Blažević went back to Switzerland, winning the Swiss Championship with Grasshopper-Club Zurich in 1984. He advanced to the second round of 1984–85 European Cup where he lost to Juventus. After a less than expected second season Blažević left Grasshopper mid-season.

In 1985, Blažević was once again in Yugoslavia, this time as manager of Kosovo's KF Prishtina. Under Blažević's leadership Prishtina achieved First Division status. To this day he is noted as a club legend.

Second stint at Dinamo, Nantes and PAOK
In the same year he became Dinamo Zagreb's coach for second time; during this period he failed to accomplish any significant results and therefore left again in 1988. His next team was FC Nantes of France; Blažević was there until 1990. After Nantes he spent a season in Greek club PAOK FC.

Croatia tenure
In the 1990s, with Croatia gaining independence, Blažević joined the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and became President Tuđman's admirer and close friend. For the third time he became Dinamo (then named NK Croatia Zagreb) coach and president at the same time. He won the 1993 Croatian Championship and 1994 Croatian Cup, but then left his favorite club once more, citing his reasons for doing so as needing to focus on managing the Croatia national team.

Blažević was national team manager from 1994 on a part-time basis, but only a year later it became a full-time job as Croatia faced its first qualifying cycle for the European Championship. Croatia won the first place in qualifying group, sensationally ahead of Italy and directly entered Euro 96 in England. Blažević was about to gain some worldwide fame.

From January to June 1996 Blažević took up a position as an advisor at HNK Rijeka to help newly appointed coach Nenad Gračan save his former club from relegation.

Croatia passed group stage with wins against Turkey and current European champions Denmark and loss to Portugal, to face Germany in quarter-finals. Germany won 2–1 and eventually went on to win the event.

However, greatest things lay ahead, as Croatia was trying to qualify to the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France. They won second place in the qualifying group behind Denmark and ousted Ukraine in a play-off for the tournament.

Blažević's Croatia squad for the 1998 World Cup included the likes of Zvonimir Boban, Davor Šuker and Slaven Bilić. In France they created one of the greatest all-time World Cup sensations by winning the third place play-off. In the group stage, Croatia eliminated Japan and Jamaica, suffering a insignificant loss to Argentina in the final game. In the knockout stages they passed by Romania, winning 1–0 from a penalty kick. This prepared them for a quarter-final against Germany. Croatia beat Germany 3–0. However, Croatia were stopped by the hosts France in the semifinal. Blažević made a critical coaching decision in that semi-final as he failed to insert his most talented player Robert Prosinečki when the game was in the balance at 1–1. Instead he opted for Silvio Marić to replace the injured Boban after half-time and Croatia eventually lost the game 2–1. In the third-place match, Prosinečki started in Boban's stead; his fielding proved fruitful as he scored the opening goal and assisted for the second, becoming man of the match. Croatia won against the Netherlands 2–1 to claim their first bronze.

The rest of his stint as Croatian manager was less successful. Croatia failed to qualify for Euro 2000, after finishing a third in a qualifying group behind FR Yugoslavia and Ireland. Blažević retained his position and began to build a new team, filled with younger players for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. However, after Croatia opened the qualifiers with two draws, he was forced to resign in autumn 2000.

Iran tenure and return to Croatia
Well known throughout the football world for his 1998 World Cup sensation, Blažević accepted an offer to lead the Iranian national team midway through the 2002 World Cup qualification process. Coming in ahead of the final qualifying round, he quickly developed a following among many of the Iranian fans. He kept the 3–5–2 formation that Iran had played with previously in the 96 Asian Cup, in which Iranian national team had won third place. He also introduced new players to Team Melli such as Rahman Rezaei, Javad Nekounam, and Ebrahim Mirzapour. Known as loudmouth and showman, Blažević stayed true to form by claiming he would hang himself from the goalposts if Iran failed to beat Ireland in the deciding qualification playoff for the 2002 World Cup. Ireland won 2–1 on aggregate, the defeat that marked the end of Blažević's time in Iran as his assistant Branko Ivanković took over.

Blažević returned to Croatia, first saving NK Osijek from relegation and then again in Dinamo. In his fourth term as Dinamo coach, Blažević won the Croatian Championship in 2003, but left again same year after clashing with his long-time friend, Dinamo's vice president Zdravko Mamić.

Blažević then led Slovenian NK Mura for few months before becoming the coach of Croatian side NK Varteks, a post he held until 31 May 2005. While at Varteks Zlatko Dalić was his assistant coach.

Short stint at Hajduk
Blažević controversially announced that he was going to coach Hajduk Split in 2005–06, having expressed his desire to coach the southern Croatian side for decades; many fans were skeptical due to his association with Hajduk Split's derby rival Dinamo Zagreb. His arrival caused a great deal of media controversy; Hajduk Split fans had differing opinions, with a significant number seeing Blažević as a "miracle worker" that would help Hajduk Split regain its former glory.

Hajduk Split under Blažević's leadership immediately got eliminated from European competitions, following an 8–0 aggregate defeat to Hungarian side Debreceni VSC; the 5–0 second leg loss is considered one of Hajduk Split's worst losses in European competitions. This was followed by a series of losses and unsatisfying results at the beginning of the new league season, which finally forced Blažević to resign on 18 September. He was replaced by Igor Štimac, former Hajduk Split player and one of his main supporters in club administration.

Neuchâtel and NK Zagreb
In October 2005, he went back to Switzerland and coached Neuchâtel Xamax, replacing Alain Geiger in an attempt to save the club from relegation after they had won just one out of their first ten games of the season. Although Blažević achieved some notable victories with Neuchâtel against Swiss powerhouses FC Basel and FC Zurich, they finished the season in ninth place (in a ten-club league) and went to relegation playoff. They were eventually relegated after losing to another Swiss team Blažević had managed 35 years earlier, FC Sion, 3–0 on aggregate, and his tenure there ended in June 2006.

Once again, he returned to Croatia, this time to take over NK Zagreb. The club experienced a successful 2006–07 season which saw them finish third behind Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split and earned them a spot in Intertoto Cup 2007. However, in the following season the team made for an early exit, losing against their first Intertoto opponent Vllaznia on away goals. After Ivica Vrdoljak and Mario Mandžukić were transferred to city rivals Dinamo Zagreb at the beginning of the season, the team saw a string of mediocre results before finishing the season sixth. Immediately after the last game of the season, Blažević announced that his stint at NK Zagreb had come to an end by mutual consent between him and the club's chairman.

Bosnia and Herzegovina


On 10 July 2008, Blažević was appointed head coach of Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team replacing Meho Kodro who had been dismissed two months earlier by the Bosnian FA (FSBiH) officials after reportedly refusing to take charge of the national team for a friendly against Iran. Since Kodro's dismissal was seen by many fans as the latest in a series of problematic decisions by the much-maligned FA leadership, Blažević was thus, by proxy, not welcomed with open arms by certain sections of the public upon his arrival. With the national team in complete disarray and many players refusing to even answer call-ups by interim head coach Denijal Pirić, the appointment of Blažević was seen by many fans as FA's desperate makeshift solution designed to appease the public in the wake of the ongoing two-month fiasco by bringing in a fairly established name. However, combining his carefully crafted showman public persona with some decent initial results on the pitch, Blažević quickly managed to charm most of the public into getting behind him. By his own admission, Blažević had already been close to getting the Bosnia-Herzegovina national team job six years earlier in 2002, but ended up not getting hired due to influential FSBiH executive Jusuf Pušina who considered Blažević unsuitable for the job because of the coach's association with the Croatian wartime president Franjo Tuđman and his political party.

Staying true to all the staples of his coaching style from his previous places of employment, seventy-four-year-old Blažević quickly became the media favourite in Sarajevo. Always ready for a sound bite, he gave bombastic interviews, cheekily delivering bold statements and sweeping promises.

Bosnia under Blažević has qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier playoffs, playing a game against Portugal. In Lisbon, Portugal, Bosnia lost 1–0, with a goal scored by Bruno Alves. In Zenica, Bosnia lost 1–0 against Portugal, with a goal scored by Raul Meireles. He was appointed manager to the Bosnia-Herzegovina team on 10 July 2008 and announced on 11 December 2009 his demission. His dismissal was preceded by criticism from Bosnian fans and journalists following Blažević's attack on fan-favorite Zvjezdan Misimović, blaming him for the defeat against Portugal.

Shanghai Shenhua
After his recession as head coach of the Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team he signed one day later on 12 December 2009 for Shanghai Shenhua. He finished the 2010 Chinese Super League season in a high third-place position qualifying for the AFC Champions League.

China Olympic
Blažević was appointed manager of the Chinese Olympic team on 30 November 2010. He resigned from his position in June 2011 after they failed to qualify to the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Mes Kerman
On 28 August 2011, Iran Pro League side Mes Kerman announced that they will sign a contract with Blažević to replace Samad Marfavi who had resigned two days earlier. On 31 August 2011, he returned to Iran after ten years and signed a one-year contract with Mes. On 9 September 2011, his side plays a match against Damash Gilan with a 1–1 draw. He started his career in the club successfully, but after the weeks, Mes returned to the relegation zone. He was sacked as club's head coach on 14 February 2012 and was appointed technical director of the club.

NK Zagreb
In November 2012 he returned to NK Zagreb to help the club stay in the Prva HNL since they were in the relegation zone. In the beginning he started to have decent results like defeating Dinamo Zagreb on home ground but later his team started to decline in results. In December 2012 he almost left the club because he had a serious argument with the NK Zagreb chairman but he decided to stay. In May 2013 after NK Zagreb failed to secure a place in the Prva HNL and finished at the bottom of the league he announced his retirement from professional football at the end of the season.

Sloboda Tuzla
In January 2014, after refusing to take over the Croatian Second Football League club NK Solin, Blažević signed with the Bosnian Sloboda Tuzla playing in the second level Bosnian League. He took over the club while it was second on the league table and agreed to lead the club until the end of the season with the goal to reach the top level Bosnian league, He succeeded, with Sloboda winning 13 and drawing 1 of his 15 matches in charge to win the First League of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a record total of 71 points from their 30 league games in the season.

Zadar
On 2 September 2014, after Sloboda Tuzla, he was named the manager of Croatian First Football League club NK Zadar, but he parted ways with the club and finished his coaching career on 2 January 2015.

Personal life and death


Blažević married Zdenka Đorđević in 1962. The couple had three children and five grandchildren. Apart from Croatian, he also held Swiss citizenship.

Blažević died of prostate cancer in Zagreb on 8 February 2023, one day before his 88th birthday. He was buried at Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery on 15 February.

Political engagement
Blažević was an admirer of Franjo Tuđman with whom he maintained a friendship as well. Blažević was also a member of the former Croatian president Tuđman's conservative political party HDZ, but he publicly disagreed with his successor, the pro-European centrist politician Ivo Sanader. Because of this, Blažević left the party in 2000 shortly after Tuđman's death, and then decided to run for President of Croatia as an independent candidate. Polls predicting the 2005 presidential election results usually gave him 1–2% of the vote. In the end he received 17,847 votes (0.80%) and was eliminated in the first round of the election.

Following the presidential elections debacle he quit politics, until he appeared once again four years later at the 2009 Zagreb local elections where he successfully ran as HDZ candidate for the city council. He claimed that prime minister Ivo Sanader had talked him into re-joining the party and running for office. He was at the time the oldest serving member of the Zagreb City Council and a member of the city board for naming streets and squares.

During World War II in Yugoslavia, Blažević's two brothers, Anto and Joso, were members of the Ustaše, a fascist organization which ruled Croatia at the time. They were both killed in combat, aged seventeen. Speaking of his brothers, Blažević stated: "I will never try to justify what they did, just like my father never tried to justify it. No normal person can support that which goes against humanity and civilised behaviour".

Robert Prosinečki
At the end of the 1986–87 season at Dinamo Zagreb, Blažević sent eighteen-year-old prospect Robert Prosinečki away from the club, famously stating he "would eat his coaching diploma if Prosinečki ever became a real [quality] football player". In the summer of 1987, Prosinečki moved to Yugoslav First League rivals Red Star Belgrade where he would go on to develop into one of the best players in Yugoslavia, winning three league titles, one cup trophy, and the European Cup title over the course of the following four years followed by a prominent transfer to Real Madrid and later Barcelona.

During his head coaching tenure with Croatia, Blažević frequently called up Prosinečki as the player became a crucial part of the team and the two seemingly mended fences.

Their ambivalent relationship took a turn for the worse again at Croatia's 1998 FIFA World Cup semi-final match against France when Blažević did not let twenty-nine-year-old Prosinečki enter the contest until the 89th minute with Croatia down 1–2 after leading at the start of the second half and being tied until the 70th minute. Many sports journalists and supporters have claimed that Croatia would have reached the final had Prosinečki been given meaningful playing time in the match. Blažević has since claimed that Prosinečki "feigned picking up an injury" during training the day before the match. Prosinečki commented on the match in 2014 by saying: "We are on good terms today, I appreciate him [Blažević] because he is unique. A man like him is born once in a lifetime, that's for sure. He has his flaws just like we all have, but he has his virtues too. For some reason, he always had problems with me. Had I played the match against France for at least half an hour I believe I would have, at the very least, been able to do something [positive]. Maybe we could have been champions, I don't know! I'm not angry, that would not be an accurate description of my feelings [on this]. Let's just say that I think of it as his mistake that he has to deal with."

Affaire VA-OM
On 20 October 1995 at Geneva Airport, while waiting to board a flight to Brussels, Blažević was taken into custody by the French financial police on match-fixing and corruption accusations stemming from his time in Nantes. The arrest occurred as part of a wide-ranging football bribery scandal in France, known in the country as Affaire VA-OM, and was based on former Olympique Marseille director Jean-Pierre Bernès' July 1995 testimony, claiming that FC Nantes head coach Blažević took a ₣420,000 bribe to fix the Marseille vs. Nantes French Division 1 league match on 25 November 1989 that ended in a 0–0 draw.

Blažević was released from Luynes Prison on 6 November 1995 on a ₣100,000 bail and was not called up again after giving his statement.

Referee incident
After his first match as manager of Osijek on 6 March 2002 Blažević lost to Dinamo Zagreb. After the match he was accused of verbal abuse and assaulting the referee Ivan Novak. Blažević was found guilty by disciplinary judge Krešimir Vlajčević and fined 6000kn and got a three-month suspension.

Career statistics

 * Incomplete

Club statistics

 * *Dates of first and last games under Blažević; not dates of official appointments

Music videos
Source: Miroslav Blazevic IMDb

Player
Lokomotiva Zagreb
 * Yugoslav Second League: 1955–56

Sarajevo
 * Yugoslav Second League: 1957–58

Sion
 * Swiss Cup: 1965

Manager
Vevey
 * 1. Liga: 1969–70

Sion
 * Swiss Cup: 1974

Dinamo Zagreb
 * Yugoslav First League: 1981–82
 * Yugoslav Cup: 1982–83
 * Prva HNL: 1992–93, 2002–03
 * Croatian Cup: 1993–94
 * Croatian Super Cup: 2002

Grasshopper
 * Swiss Super League: 1983–84

Hajduk Split
 * Croatian Super Cup: 2005

Sloboda Tuzla
 * First League of FBiH: 2013–14

Croatia
 * FIFA World Cup third place: 1998

Individual

 * Franjo Bučar State Award for Sport: 1998 (two awards), 2007
 * Bosnia and Herzegovina Manager of the Year: 2009

Orders

 * Order of DH Franjo Bučar.jpg Order of Danica Hrvatska with face of Franjo Bučar (1995)
 * Order of Prince Branimir.jpg Order of Duke Branimir with Necklace (1998)