Miroslav Blažević

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Miroslav "Ćiro" Blažević [ˈmirɔslaːʋ ˈɕiːrɔ ˈblaːʒɛʋitɕ] (born February 10, 1935) is a famous Croatian football manager. He is currently the manager of NK Zagreb.

[edit] Football career

The Swiss-Croat was born to a Bosnian Croat family in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Yugoslavia. His career as a player was, by his own admission, average; therefore, he began his coaching career at a relatively early age. He started as a coach where he ended his playing days—in Switzerland. He first led FC Vevey (1963-67) then his former team FC Sion (1967-72), Lausanne Sports (1973-74) and finally Switzerland's national team (1975-76).

Blažević returned to the former Yugoslavia in 1979 to coach NK Rijeka. After winning solid 10th place with Rijeka in a strong Yugoslav Football Championship, Blažević went to NK Dinamo Zagreb, one of Yugoslavia's four most respected teams (the other three were Crvena Zvezda, Partizan Belgrade and Hajduk Split) in 1980. After a mediocre first season, where Dinamo finished in 5th place, Ćiro became a legend in 1982, winning the Zagreb outfit their first Yugoslav Championship success for 24 years. This success had political connotations too. Dinamo's success and the ensuing euphoria were seen as a catalyst for Croatian nationalism, which was not tolerated by the Communist regime.

Next year, Dinamo won the Yugoslav Cup and led a long battle with Partizan and Hajduk in the league. Partizan became 1983 champions and Blažević left Dinamo for the first time. He claimed that he had to escape because he was about to be arrested as one of the leading Croatian nationalists; while Ćiro was by no means popular with the authorities, many see this as pure self-propaganda.

However, Ćiro went back to Switzerland, winning the Swiss Championship with Grasshopper-Club Zurich in 1984. After that he briefly coached Greek club PAOK Thessaloniki in 1985. In 1986, Ćiro was once again in Yugoslavia, this time as manager of Kosovo's FK Priština. Under Ćiro's command Priština achieved First Division status and he again became a folk hero, this time among Kosovo's Albanian majority.

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; Ćiro was there until 1990. His stint with Nantes is best remembered for his alleged involvement in game-fixing scandals that sent to prison high football officials like Bernard Tapie.

In the 1990s, with Croatia gaining independence, Ćiro joined the Croatian Democratic Union and became President Tuđman's admirer and close friend. For the third time he became Dinamo (now named NK Croatia Zagreb) coach and president at the same time. Ćiro 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 Croatian national team.

Ćiro 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 ciclus 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 world-wide fame.

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 went on to win the event, but Ćiro and Croatians claimed that the Swedish referee Leif Sundell was somewhat biased towards the Germans.

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.

The Croatian squad of 1998 was full of accomplished players who played for top European clubs, including the likes of Zvonimir Boban, Davor Šuker and Slaven Bilić, and they were well led by Blažević. 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 non-significant 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. Ćiro and the Croatians got their revenge with a shocking 3-0 win that stunned the world. However, Croatia were stopped by the hosts France in semis; a somewhat undeserved 2-1 defeat to the eventual champions. It should be noted that Blazevic made a critical coaching decision in that semi-final as he failed to insert his most talented player Robert Prosinecki when the game was in the balance at 1-1. Instead he opted for Silvio Maric to replace the injured Boban after halftime and Croatia eventually lost the game 2-1. In the third-place match, Prosinecki started and immediately made his presence felt by scoring the first goal and delievering a wonderful defence splitting pass which resulted in Croatia's second goal. Croatia won against Holland 2-1 to claim the bronze. Just like in 1982, Ćiro was again the national hero.

The rest of his stint as Croatian manager was not so successful. Croatia failed to qualify for Euro 2000, after finishing a disappointing third in a qualifying group behind FR Yugoslavia and Ireland. Ćiro 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.

Well known for his 1998 sensation, Ćiro accepted an offer to lead the Iranian national team. After Iran failed to qualify to World Cup 2002, Ćiro was back in Croatia, first saving NK Osijek from relegation and then again in Dinamo. In his forth 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.

Ćiro then led Slovenian NK Mura for few months before becoming the coach of Croatian side NK Varteks, a post he held until the end of the season.

Ćiro controversially announced that he was going to coach Hajduk Split in 2005/2006, having expressed his desire to coach the southern Croatian side for decades; many fans were sceptical due to his association with Hajduk's arch-rival Dinamo. Not surprisingly, his arrival caused a great deal of controversy; Hajduk fans had differing opinions, with a significant number seeing Ćiro as a miracle worker that would help Hajduk regain its former glory.

Those expectations weren't met; Hajduk under Ćiro's leadership immediately got eliminated from European competitions, following an 8-0 aggregate defeat at the hands of Hungarian side Debreceni VSC; the 5-0 second leg drubbing being the most humiliating result for the Split club at Poljud stadium. The opening stages of the new league campaign brought about another series of humiliations, finally forcing Ćiro to resign on September 18th, followed by Igor Štimac, former Hajduk player and one of his main supporters in club administration.

From October 2005 to June 2006 he went back to Switzerland and coached Neuchâtel Xamax.

[edit] Political ambition

Ćiro was a member of late President Tuđman's HDZ, but he wasn't happy with new pro-EU HDZ leader Ivo Sanader. Therefore, he decided to run for President as an independent candidate.

Polls predicting the 2005 Presidential elections of Croatia usually gave him 1 to 2% of the vote. In the end he got 17,847 votes (0.80%) and was eliminated in the first round of the election.

	Croatia squad - 1996 European Championship
1 Ladić | 2 Jurčević | 3 Jarni | 4 Štimac | 5 Jerkan | 6 Bilić | 7 Asanović | 8 Prosinečki | 9 Šuker | 10 Boban | 11 Bokšić | 12 Mrmić | 13 Stanić | 14 Soldo | 15 Pavličić | 16 Mladenović | 17 Pamić | 18 Brajković | 19 Vlaović | 20 Šimić | 21 Cvitanović | 22 Gabrić | Coach: Blažević

	Croatia squad - 1998 FIFA World Cup Third Place
1 Ladić | 2 Krpan | 3 Šerić | 4 Štimac | 5 Jurić | 6 Bilić | 7 Asanović | 8 Prosinečki | 9 Šuker | 10 Boban | 11 Marić | 12 Mrmić | 13 Stanić | 14 Soldo | 15 Tudor | 16 Kozniku | 17 Jarni | 18 Mamić | 19 Vlaović | 20 Šimić | 21 Jurčić | 22 Vasilj | Coach: Blažević