Božo Bakota

Božo Bakota
Personal information
Date of birth 1 October 1950 (1950-10-01) (age 61)
Place of birth Zagreb, SFR Yugoslavia
Playing position Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps† (Gls)†
1973–1980 NK Zagreb 138 (48)
1980–1986 Sturm Graz 167 (86)
Total 305 (134)
National team
1978 Yugoslavia 1 (0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.
† Appearances (Goals).

Božo Bakota (born 1 October 1950 in Zagreb) is a former Croatian footballer who played as a forward for NK Zagreb and SK Sturm Graz during a career spanning from 1973 to 1986.

Bakota started his career with NK Zagreb and played there for the first seven seasons of his career, at a time when the club was struggling to establish themselves as a stable top flight side. He stayed with the club after they were relegated from first division at the end of the 1973–74 season, and helped them return to top division the following year. His best season with NK Zagreb was 1977–78 when he scored 10 goals in 28 appearances, playing as their starting line-up midfielder.

However, in 1979 they were relegated again, and after staying at the club for one more season, Bakota decided to re-join his former manager Otto Barić at Austrian side SK Sturm Graz in 1980. He flourished there, forming an attacking partnership with Gernot Jurtin, and helping the club finish as league runners-up in the 1980-81 season, as well as becoming the league's top scorer in the 1981-82 season with 24 goals in 36 appearances.[1] In European competitions, his greatest achievement was reaching the 1983–84 UEFA Cup quarter-finals with Sturm, before they were knocked out by England's Nottingham Forest 1–2 on aggregate. Bakota retired in 1986, having scored a total of 86 goals in 167 Austrian Bundesliga appearances for Sturm.[2]

His good games at NK Zagreb were also noticed by the national team manager Dražan Jerković who called him up to the national side in 1978. Bakota debuted and earned his single national cap on 15 November 1978, in a Balkan Cup 4–1 win against Greece held in Skopje (in a match which saw Vahid Halilhodžić scoring a hat-trick).[3]

References

  1. ^ "Austria - List of Topscorers". rsssf.com. http://www.rsssf.com/tableso/oosttops.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09. 
  2. ^ "Bakota, Božo". national-football-teams.com. http://www.national-football-teams.com/v2/player.php?id=22702. Retrieved 2009-11-09. 
  3. ^ "Statistika utakmice reprezentacije" (in Serbian). reprezentacija.rs. http://www.reprezentacija.rs/cgi-bin/index.pl?str=utakmica&utak=00403. Retrieved 2009-11-09. 

External links