Frane Matošić

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Frane Matošić (25 November 1918 – 29 October 2007) was Croatian football player and coach. Born in Split, he played on the position of the striker.

He was the best goalscorer of HNK Hajduk Split of all times and its biggest football player legend.

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[edit] Player career

[edit] Club career

Matošić started to play football with HNK Hajduk from Split. He played 16 seasons for Hajduk.
In his very first game for Hajduk in 1935 against Slavija from Sarajevo, Matošić scored a hat-trick.

While serving the obligatory military service in the season 1939, he played for the BSK from Belgrade.
Next season, season 1939/40, he returned to Hajduk.
After Hajduk's management suspending the work of Hajduk in 1941, he went abroad to play for Bologna F.C. 1909, played in season of 1942/43.
When the information about restoring of Hajduk's work came to Frane Matošić, he returned to Croatia and smuggled himself on the free territory.
There he joined Hajduk, that restarted its work on the free, Allied controlled part of Croatia, on the island of Vis.
Since then, Matošić was playing the games for Hajduk (that was playing friendly games against Allied teams on the Mediterranean).

Altogether, Matošić played 739 games for Hajduk and scored impressive 729 goals.

[edit] National team career

Matošić was a long time Yugoslav national team player. He played 16 games and scored 6 goals for Yugoslavia. His last game was in 1953, and in that game he also scored a goal.

[edit] Coach career

After the ending of career as player, he turned to coaching career, with success.
He was the coach of his Hajduk (few years after his brother Jozo was coaching it) in the seasons 1955/56 and 1956/57.
In 1957, he was the coach of Yugoslav national football team.
He was also the coach of Tunisian football team and the coach of Split's second football squad, RNK Split.

[edit] Trivia

Frane Matošić was a younger brother of Jozo Matošić, also the great Hajduk's and Croatian soccer player legend.

He twice refused Tito's offer of transferring of Hajduk to Belgrade and renaming it into "Partizan"

Frane Matošić died in Split on the anniversary of Hajduk's historical victory over Crvena zvezda from Belgrade in 1950.

[edit] Trophies

All his trophies were won with Hajduk.

  • champion of Croatia: 1941 (championship of Hrvatski nogometni savez, Croatian Football Federation)
  • champion of Yugoslavia: 1950, 1952 i 1955.

He won the silver medal on the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.

[edit] External links