Slobodan Santrač

Slobodan Santrač
Personnel
birthday	July 1, 1946
place of birth	Koceljeva ,  SFR Yugoslavia
date of death	February 13, 2016
Place of death	Belgrade ,  Serbia
size	171 cm
position	Storm
Juniors
Years	station
1959-1960	FK Takovo
1960-1965	FK Metalac Valjevo
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1965-1974	OFK Beograd	244 (169)
1974-1976	Grasshopper Zurich	42 0(29)
1976-1977	OFK Beograd	40 0(17)
1978-1980	FK Partizan	63 0(29)
1980-1983	FK Zemun	56 0(31)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1966-1974	Yugoslavia	8 (1)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1994-1998	BR Yugoslavia
1999-2000	Shandong Luneng Taishan
2001	Saudi Arabia
2005	Macedonia
2008	Guangzhou R&F
2009	Qingdao Jonoon
2011	Beijing Renhe
1 Only league games are given.

Slobodan Santrač (born July 1, 1946 in Koceljeva , † February 13, 2016 in Belgrade ) was a Yugoslav football player who later switched to the profession of coach .

Player career

Born in Serbia, Santrač initially played for small clubs in Takovo and Valjevo when he was a teenager . At the age of 19 he moved to the capital association OFK Belgrade . There he quickly became a successful goalscorer : in 1968 he was the top scorer in the first Yugoslav league for the first time. He succeeded again in 1970, 1972 and 1973. He scored a total of 218 goals in the top division, making him the best shooter in Yugoslav football history. In 1970 he received the bronze shoe as the third best scorer in Europe .

In 1974 he moved to Grasshoppers Zurich . After two years in Switzerland , however, he returned to OFK Belgrade. At the age of 32, he joined local rivals Partizan Belgrade in 1978 , for whom he played for two more years before ending his career from 1980 to 1983 at a small club in the Belgrade suburb of Galenika .

Despite his outstanding number of hits, Santrač was denied a career in the national team , which observers found mainly because he did not play for the neighboring big clubs Red Star and Partizan in his heyday . So he only made eight appearances in the national team and only scored one goal.

Trainer

Santrač struck after his active time the coaching career and initially took over the Belgrade suburban club FK Zemun , which he brought from the third to the first division between 1988 and 1990. In 1991 the Yugoslav Association hired him as a junior director; later he became assistant to national coaches Ivica Osim and Ivan Čabrinović . In 1994, Association President Milan Miljanić promoted him to head coach.

Yugoslavia was not yet allowed to participate in qualifying for the European Championship in 1996 due to the sanctions resulting from the civil war . The qualification for the 1998 World Cup was made second in the group and with two subsequent wins in the play-offs against Hungary . However, critical voices against Santrač were loud again and again, he was only guided by the wishes of stars like Dragan Stojković or Dejan Savićević .

At the World Cup finals in France , Yugoslavia finished second in group F behind Germany . In the last sixteen they lost 2-1 to the Netherlands . Although this was a respectable result, Santrač was disappointed with the result. He resigned and was replaced by Milan Živadinović .

In his further career, Santrač were not very successful. He served briefly as the national coach of Saudi Arabia and took over the selection of Macedonia in 2005 , but was replaced there by Srečko Katanec a year later .

death

On February 13, 2016, Santrač died of a heart attack at the age of 69 . He left his wife Biljana and sons Aleksandar and Nenad.

Web links

• Biography
• Biography at the Serbian Football Association (Serbian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ODLAZAK FUDBALSKE LEGEND Preminuo Slobodan Santrač!