Anto Drobnjak

Anto Drobnjak
Personnel
birthday	September 21, 1968
place of birth	Bijelo Polje ,  SFR Yugoslavia
size	186 cm
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
	FK Jedinstvo Bijelo Polje
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1987-1990	FK Jedinstvo Bijelo Polje	70 (27)
1990-1992	FK Budućnost Titograd	48 (22)
1992-1994	FK Red Star Belgrade	64 (39)
1994-1997	SC Bastia	100 (50)
1997-1998	RC Lens	32 (14)
1998-1999	Gamba Osaka	31 (12)
1999-2001	FC Sochaux	32 0(4)
2001-2002	FC Martigues	26 0(9)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1996-1998	Federal Republic of Yugoslavia	7 0(4)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
2006	FK Budućnost Podgorica (interim)
2011-2015	Montenegro (assistant coach)
1 Only league games are given.

Anto Drobnjak ( Cyrillic spelling : Анто Дробњак ; born September 21, 1968 in Bijelo Polje , SFR Yugoslavia ) is a former Yugoslav, later Serbian-Montenegrin , football player in the position of a striker and now a Montenegrin football coach and official.

After starting his career in his home country, it took him back to France via France and Japan , where he let his active career end. From 2011 to 2015 he appeared under Branko Brnović as the assistant coach of the Montenegrin national soccer team .

His older brother Branislav Drobnjak (* 1961) was also a soccer player and was active in Austria , among other places .

Club career

Career start at FK Jedinstvo Bijelo Polje

Anto Drobnjak was born on September 21, 1968 in the small town of Bijelo Polje in northeast Montenegro, where he grew up and began his career as a football player. Here he was initially in the youth teams of the local club FK Jedinstvo Bijelo Polje for use and rose to the men's team in the 1986/87 season. During this season he made five championship appearances for the Yugoslav third division team. With the team he ranked third in the final table behind OFK Igalo (second) and FK Mladost (first). In the following season 1987/88 Drobnjak was not only able to improve his playing times, but also scored several times. After 24 league games and seven goals, he ranked in the final classification of the Yugoslav third division with FK Jedinstvo Bijelo Polje in second place in the table behind FK Bokelj Kotor and barely made it to the next higher division. The tall striker then suffered a slump in performance in the 1988/89 season, when he made only 14 league appearances and scored only once. Seventh place in the league was emblematic of this achievement. In the following third division season 1989/90 Drobnjak was however the goal guarantor. With his 19 goals from 27 games, he also drew the attention of those responsible in the upper leagues to himself, even if his team only took eighth place in the final standings.

Change to the highest Yugoslav soccer league

After the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the reigning Yugoslav champions and record champions FK Red Star Belgrade signed him in the summer break before the 1992/93 season . At the club in what is now the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , Drobnjak came under the experienced coach Milan Živadinović , a former protégé of Hugo Ruševljanin , as a regular player in the attack. He was used in 35 of the 36 league games this season and contributed 22 goals. With these he was, together with Vesko Mihajlović from FK Vojvodina , who brought it on as many hits, top scorer of the Prva liga SR Jugoslavije. In the final standings, he and the team ranked second in the table behind the overpowering city rivals FK Partizan Belgrade this season .

He achieved this placement with the record champions in the following 1993/94 season , when the attacking player scored 17 goals in 29 league appearances. While the team had made it to the final of the Football Cup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992/93 and only defeated local rivals Partizan Belgrade on penalties in the second leg, Red Star failed in the semifinals against Partizan in 1993/94. It was also Drobnjak who kept the Red Star in the cup second leg in 1992/93 after taking the 1-0 lead in 50 minutes, but even had to leave the field early after 79 minutes after yellow-red . Due to his outstanding offensive performance in the highest football league in the country, various international clubs became aware of the 1.86 m tall striker. Especially in France they had an eye on the headball-strong Drobnjak.

First years in France

Shortly after the assassination of the former club president Jean-François Filippi , Drobnjak moved to Corsica in the summer of 1994 , where he was signed to SC Bastia . There he was initially trained by Léonce Lavagne , before the previous junior coach Frédéric Antonetti took over the coaching position at the French first division club at the time . In his early days in France, he also let his hair grow and still wears this shoulder-length hairstyle to this day (as of 2017). Under coach Antonetti, Drobnjak was used as a regular player from the start and made 31 appearances in 38 league games that had been possible, in which he scored a total of twelve times. The 1994/95 season he concluded with SC Bastia, who had only made promotion from Division 2 in the previous season , in 15th place in the table. In the Coupe de France 1994/95 Drobnjak was defeated with the SC Bastia of AS Nancy with 0-1 in the round of 16 and was eliminated from the current competition. In the Coupe de la Ligue, however, the striker made it to the final of the Coupe de la Ligue 1994/95 with SC Bastia, losing 2-0 to Paris Saint-Germain .

In the 1995/96 championship Drobnjak was able to improve his offensive performance significantly and brought it to a record of 20 goals in 36 of 38 possible championship games, with almost half of all goals that his team scored in this season. With this number of hits, he led the team's internal goalscorer list by a considerable margin and was only one goal behind Sonny Anderson from AS Monaco in second place in the division 1 goalscorer list . Although the SC Bastia did not get beyond a fourth place, which was sometimes due to the vulnerable defense. In the Coupe de France 1995/96 , SC Bastia came to an abrupt end when they lost 1-0 to the fifth division club CS Blénod in the first round match, the thirty-second finals. The Coupe de la Ligue 1995/96 he ended with the team also after the first game when he lost 1-0 in the round of 32 against Le Havre AC .

Also in the 1996/97 season , coach Antonetti used him as a regular player in the attack of the Corsican club, where he scored 18 goals in 33 championship appearances, making him one of the most dangerous players in the league. Only five players scored more goals than Drobnjak this season; within the team he was again by far the best goalscorer. This brought him increasing attention in his own league, as well as in other European countries, whereupon he was courted by various teams. At the end of the season he was able to break away with Bastia after two poorly placed years in a row from the lower half of the table and ranked seventh, which meant a starting place in the 1997 UEFA Intertoto Cup . In the French Cup, the attacking player and his team made it to the sixteenth finals in 1996/97 , in which the team was only defeated by league rivals OGC Nice on penalties . Also only on penalties did the team get out of the first game of the Coupe de la Ligue in 1996/97 . Due to his consistently strong offensive performance, Drobnjak was called up for the first time in the national soccer team of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and made his debut here under national coach Slobodan Santrač .

French champion with the RC Lens

Before the start of Division 1 in 1997/98 , Drobnjak moved within the French first class to RC Lens , who had finished the previous season in 13th place. Here he was used as a center forward under Daniel Leclercq , accompanied on the flights by Vladimír Šmicer and Tony Vairelles, among others . Marc-Vivien Foé , who died early, was one of his team-mates at the time, as well as various other national players. Under Leclercq, Drobnjak started as a regular in the attack as usual and was mostly in action from the beginning and for the full game, especially at the beginning of the season. His first league goal for RC Lens came in the fourth game of the season, a 3-2 away win over Olympique Marseille , where he contributed all three goals of his team. After ten games without a goal, the 1.86 m tall striker only scored again in the 15th round and only scored another hat trick one round later . In the 5: 4 home win over AS Cannes he scored all his goals between the 11th and 22nd minute of the game and helped the team to an early 4-0 lead, which AS Cannes caught up in the second half and Lens caught up with the game only won after Stéphane Ziani's second goal . Especially in the very successful last third of the season, the Montenegrin contributed a few important goals and helped the club to its first championship title in the top French division in the club's history. With 14 goals from 32 league appearances, he led the team's internal goalscorer list before Vairelles with nine goals and Šmicer with seven goals. In the division 1 scorers list, he was ranked fourth along with Lilian Laslandes from Girondins Bordeaux . Only Victor Ikpeba (16 goals), David Trezeguet (18 goals; both AS Monaco ) and Stéphane Guivarc'h from AJ Auxerre (21 goals) had an even better goal balance.

In the Coupe de France 1997/98 , the northern French made it back to the finals after 1948 and 1975 , but only just failed there, as in the last two finals. This time they lost to Paris Saint-Germain 1: 2; Even a late connection goal by Vladimír Šmicer could not bring the turnaround for Lens. Also in the Coupe de la Ligue 1997/98 the team from the former mining town lost to the team from the Paris suburb. In the semifinals, Lens also failed 2-1, with Paris Saint-Germain also winning the subsequent final against Girondins Bordeaux on penalties.

As a national player to Japan

On Champions League -Adventure with the RC Lens Drobnjak was no longer involved. After the end of the 1997/98 season, he left Europe to get involved in football in Asia. It was his ex-trainer at Bastia, Frédéric Antonetti, who brought him to Japan to join Gamba Osaka , shortly before he had taken over as coach from Friedl Koncilia . In 1998 he was one of six legionnaires in the Gamba Osaka squad, which was otherwise made up of Japanese players, alongside his compatriot Nebojša Krupniković , the French Claude Dambury , the Cameroonian Patrick M'Boma , the Boban Babunski and the Slovenian Amir Karić . At the club from the city of Suita , he was used in 18 championship games this year and contributed eight goals. While the team was already in 14th place at the end of the first half series, it even slipped to 16th of 18 places in the table in the second half series. Although he had only made so few appearances since he had only joined the team in the summer during the current season, he was the second best goalscorer in the squad behind youngster Hiromi Kojima (17 goals) in terms of goals. In the Kaiser Cup of 1998, the team was defeated in the first game in the third round with 1: 2 against Montedio Yamagata . In contrast, things did n't go much better for the team in the 1998 J. League Cup . After four group games, the team was eliminated from the current tournament as second in group C. For the 1998 World Cup , in which the FR of Yugoslavia made it to the round of 16, Drobnjak, who was used at irregular intervals in the national team, was not taken into account.

In the 1999 game year , Drobnjak was used between the beginning of March and the end of May in 13 games of the first half series consisting of 15 championship games, scored four goals and placed the team in tenth place in the table. While he no longer took part in the Kaiser Cup 1999 , because it was only held at the end of the year and he was no longer in the squad at that time, he at least played in the 1999 J. League Cup , in which the team played in the second round against the Kashima Antlers was eliminated. After he was the only legionnaire besides Claude Dambury who had also been with the club the year before, and Frédéric Antonetti had to vacate his coaching chair after the first half series, the Montenegrin returned to France in the summer of 1999 and was just hired by the Second class relegated FC Sochaux .

Career end in France

At the club from the industrial town of Sochaux he came under the former French international Philippe Anziani from the start as a regular and scored his first goal and three in the second game of the season, a 2-1 home win over OGC Nice on August 6, 1999 Play the next hit later. After veteran Jean Fernandez took over the position of coach at the beginning of September 1999, Drobnjak's playing minutes decreased continuously before he was not part of the Sochaux professional squad for the first time on September 25th. After a brief appearance in the next game against ASOA Valence , he was again not in the squad for two games, came on October 23 for a 70-minute assignment against the US Créteil , before Fernandez did not consider him for the professional team until the year. It was not until January 2000 that the attacking player, who had a strong header, returned to the starting line-up and missed only one of the following seven league games, before he was no longer considered by Jean Fernandez from mid-March and was no longer in the official professional squad until the end of the season. At the end of the season Drobnjak came to a balance of 18 of 38 possible league appearances, where he scored only three goals. The team ranked fourth in the final standings and only just failed to get promoted back to Division 1. While the team in the Coupe de France 1999/2000 was eliminated in the thirty-second finals against Le Havre AC on penalties, FC Sochaux made it in the Coupe de la Ligue 1999/2000 to the round of 16 and only lost to AS Nancy 1: 2 there.

After half a year without a professional league deployment - Jean Fernandez did not use him at the beginning of the 2000/01 season and instead relied on the attacking duo Santos / Pierre-Alain Frau - he came back to a brief assignment on September 23, 2000 for the first time when he was Replacement for Santos came on the lawn. In the following 13 league games, he alternated between short appearances lasting a few minutes or sat on the bench without being used. After that, Fernandez did not consider him again at the beginning of the new year, before he was again briefly in the professional squad of Sochaux, before falling out of the professional squad again for three months. The team was on course for the title for almost the entire season and Fernandez only used him again in the last two games of the season for a few minutes, when promotion to the highest football league in the country was already secured. At the end of the season he won Division 2 with FC Sochaux and was promoted to Division 1 with the team. He made only 14 league appearances with a total of about 145 minutes of play, as well as one hit. In the Coupe de France 2000/2001 , as well as in the Coupe de la Ligue 2000/01 , the Montenegrin and his team were eliminated in the first round.

Although the return to the regular force under coach Jean Fernandez was considered hopeless, Anto Drobnjak fulfilled his contract and only changed clubs in the summer of 2001 after his contract expired. He stayed in Division 2 and joined FC Martigues . Martigues was only promoted from the third division in 1999/2000 and would have been the 18th of 20 clubs in the 2000/01 season to be relegated to it again, if Toulouse FC , relegated from Division 1, were not in the third division due to its bankruptcy Nationally “transferred”. So the FC Martigues remained for the 2001/02 season in the second highest division in the country, where he was initially used by Christian Caminiti as a regular in the attack line. He succeeded in the first game of the season on September 8, 2001 in a 3-1 home win over the US Créteil and his first competitive goal for Martigues. After some turmoil in the club's management - in October Caminiti was followed by interim coach Guy David , who left the team in December - he was not part of the professional squad for some games and only slowly returned to these in November 2001. Then he advanced under Guy David and his successor Baptiste Gentili , who managed the fortunes of the team until the end of the season, again to a more or less dangerous goal player. In the final standings, FC Martigues was in last place, tied with the club Olympique Nîmes, which was also relegated . In 38 league games that had been possible, the Montenegrin had made 26 missions and nine goals. In the 2001/02 Cup , the team from the industrial port city of Martigues was eliminated after the first game, a 2-1 defeat against the first division club HSC Montpellier , and in the 2001/02 League Cup , the team did not make it through the second game, the sixteenth finals , out. Drobnjak, now 33 years old, ended his career as a professional footballer at the end of the season.

National team career

Drobnjak made his debut in the national soccer team of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on October 6, 1996 in an 8-1 victory over the Faroe Islands in the course of qualifying for the 1998 World Cup . He came in the 74th minute of play for three-time goalscorer Savo Milošević on the lawn. Drobnjak was called up for the national team by national coach Slobodan Santrač due to his consistently strong offensive performance in France. In the following two years the striker was used at irregular intervals in the national team of the FR Yugoslavia, mostly in friendly international matches. With his home country he took part in the 1997 Carlsberg Cup , an international tournament on the occasion of the Chinese New Year celebrations in Hong Kong , and on February 7, 1997 he played a game against Russia , in which he was on the pitch for the full length of the game and made 1: 0 leadership met. The game ended in a 1-1 draw.

In the game against Hong Kong three days later , a 3-1 win for BR Yugoslavia, he was again in action for the entire game and scored the goals in minutes 17 and 32 to lead 2-0 and 3-0 . Only about a month later he was used again in a friendly international match against Russia in Belgrade . This time only until the 63rd minute of the game before he was replaced by Savo Milošević . After that, it took almost a year - Drobnjak was meanwhile a player at RC Lens and on course for the title with it - before he made it back into the national team. He scored the only goal for his country in a 3-1 defeat in a friendly against Argentina on February 24, 1998. On March 25, 1998 another friendly match against Colombia followed and on April 22, 1998 another against South Korea . After that, he was not considered for the 1998 World Cup , in which the FR of Yugoslavia made it to the round of 16, nor for further international matches. In total, Anto Drobnjak was in seven international matches and scored four goals.

Trainer and functionary career

Soon after the end of his playing career, Drobnjak became sports director at his home club FK Budućnost Podgorica. In 2006, after coach Branislava Milačića was kicked out, he also briefly coached the professional team as an interim coach . He then remained the sports director of the Montenegrin capital club for several years before he was hired as an assistant coach in 2011 under Branko Brnović , who was around a year older and a former teammate at FK Budućnost Titograd and in the national team of BR Yugoslavia. The previous assistant coach Brnović took over the office of Zlatko Kranjčar on September 8, 2011 after a falling out between him and the association president Dejan Savićević , another longtime teammate Drobnjaks. At the side of Branko Brnović, Anto Drobnjak led his home country into the relegation playoffs for qualifying for the 2012 European Championship . In these, however, the Montenegrins were defeated by a total score of 0: 3 against the Czech Republic and thus only just failed to qualify for the first time at the European Championship. In qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil , he failed with his home country in the group stage, which the Montenegrins finished third in Group H behind Ukraine (second) and England (first). During this time, on September 11, 2012, the highest victory in the relatively young history of the Montenegrin national soccer team fell, when San Marino was defeated 6-0. Especially after the first few six qualifying games, Montenegro was the favorite for a World Cup participation, which had brought the team to four wins and two draws by then. Of the following four internationals, however, three were lost and another against Poland ended in a draw.

After another series of friendly internationals, Brnović started with Drobnjak in his coaching team on September 8, 2014 with the Montenegrins in the qualification for the European Championship 2016 . In this one could not assert oneself against the competition either; in the end it was a fourth place in group G , leaving only Liechtenstein and Moldova behind. After the unsuccessful European Championship qualification, the team played another friendly against Macedonia on November 12, 2015 in the 2015 calendar year , which ended in a 4-1 defeat. In December 2015, the entire coaching team was released before Ljubiša Tumbaković took over the coaching position for the Montenegrins at the beginning of the following year . Drobnjak was again appointed sports director at FK Budućnost Podgorica in June 2015 while the European Championship qualification was still in progress. In this position he is still active today (as of December 2017). After François Ciccolini was sacked as coach of SC Bastia in February 2017, Drobnjak, who holds a UEFA Pro license, was linked to his former French club after announcing his interest in the vacant coaching position . Subsequently, however, Rui Almeida from Portugal was hired as the new coach after Drobnjak apparently had delayed contacting the French. The Portuguese, who only held the coaching post until June 2017, was followed by Réginald Ray, known by Anto Drobnjak .

successes

Club successes

with FK Red Star Belgrade

• Yugoslav Cup Winner : 1992/93
• Vice-champion of the Prva liga SR Jugoslavije : 1992/93 and 1993/94

with the SC Bastia

• Finalist of the Coupe de la Ligue : 1994/95

with the RC Lens

• Master of the Division 1 : 1997/98

with FC Sochaux

• Champion of Division 2 and promotion to Division 1 : 2000/01

Individual successes

• Top scorer of the Prva liga SR Jugoslavije : 1992/93 (22 goals; together with Vesko Mihajlović from FK Vojvodina )
• Second best goalscorer in Division 1 : 1995/96 (20 goals; behind Sonny Anderson of AS Monaco with 21 goals)

Web links

• Anto Drobnjak in the database of National-Football-Teams.com (English)
• Anto Drobnjak in the database of footballdatabase.eu (English)
• Anto Drobnjak on the official website of the Ligue de Football Professionnel (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Anto Drobnjak on eu-football.info (English), accessed on December 13, 2017
2. ↑ Anto Drobnjak na klupi Budućnosti (Serbian), accessed on December 14, 2017
3. ↑ Zlatko Kranjcar has had its day , accessed on December 14, 2017
4. ↑ Czech cheer as Jiráček ends Montenegro bid (English), accessed on December 14, 2017
5. ↑ Montenegro releasing coach Brnović (English), accessed on December 14, 2017
6. ↑ Anto Drobnjak sportski director Budućnosti (Serbian / Montenegrin), accessed on December 14, 2017
7. ^ Anto Drobnjak: “Ma priorité, c'est la France” (French), accessed on December 14, 2017