Miroslav Ćiro Blažević
Croatia had many brilliant football experts, and Miroslav Blažević is definitely amongst the most prominent. Ćiro was and is the one and only, outstanding, coach who was much more. Always friendly towards everybody, he was and is a man of the people who, even at his very top, never turned anybody down. With Ćiro Blažević nothing was ordinary, and it all started with the day of his birth. Even though he was born on 9 February 1935 in Dolac na Lašvi in the municipality Travnik in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina, his father Mato only managed to get to the registry office a day later, so his birthday is registered on 10 February.
He was a talented football player, he played for the Zagreb clubs Dinamo and Lokomotiva, and then for Sarajevo and Rijeka, in 1963 he transferred to the Swiss club Sion. His transfer abroad was crucial because he mastered the coaching craft in Switzerland which granted him his prominent career. He came back to his homeland in 1979 in the club Rijeka, and his return to Maksimir to the club Dinamo in 1980 marked a crucial moment in his career. He made his mark two years later when he had risen the fallen Zagreb giant all the way to the top and won the 1982 Yugoslav Cup – for the first time after long 24 years of waiting. Ćiro Blažević led the games with a white scarf around his neck and this fashion accessory will remain as an eternal symbol of Dinamo's great title.
After that, his active coaching career lasted more than three decades and wherever he worked, he made his mark. But the period between 1994 and 2000, when he led the Croatian national team, is Blažević's life's work. The first coach who led the chosen Croatian team in a grand tournament of the European Championship and in 1996 reached the quarter-finals in England. Two years later, in the France World Cup, he managed to achieve something that nobody in Croatia thought could be done. Under his leadership the Croatian team made the miracle of all miracles – they won third place in the World Cup, and he became the coach of all coaches. Under his leadership, Croatia became a renowned football giant that, two decades later, led by his student Zlatko Dalić, went even a step further in the 2018 Mundial in Russia and won silver. To that generation, Ćiro and his boys from the France Cup of '98 were their idols and proved that even a tiny Croatia is capable of achieving greatness.
Ćiro Blažević left us on 8 March 2023 after numerous successful battles, but his last, the one with the illness, he lost. He left a great void in the hearts of those who knew him, but also in the hearts of many others who for decades could enjoy his uniqueness. A football great whose memory will never fade.
Dražen Petrović
More than three decades have passed since the world of basketball lost one of its greatest gems – the tragic death of Dražen Petrović on 7 June 1993 caused by a horrific automobile accident on the German autobahn. Over thirty years flew by without the greatest basketball player Croatia has ever had, but the memories of those who had the honor to see the basketball Mozart at work are still alive.
Dražen was born on 22 October 1964 in Šibenik, the town where his career began. When he was 15 years old he joined the first team of Šibenka and soon became their lead player. With that team in 1982, as a member of the starting lineup, he played in the finals of a major European competition – the Radivoj Korać Cup. He led them there again in 1983 where he, with his baskets against Bosnia, won the team's first championship title of Yugoslavia, which the Federation stripped off him.
He was a wunderkind who improved his great talent with his remarkable work ethic. He trained more than anybody and the success simply awaited him. When in 1984 he arrived in Zagreb's Cibona, it did not take long for Dražen to transform from a basketball player to a real movement. He was an idol to the whole generation, he was even respected by the supporters of the biggest rival clubs. He did not hide the secret to his success: "When I couldn't train, I would get sick. I was many times asked from where I derive my will for work and improvements. The answer isn't so hard – while I play basketball, I want to be the best!"
And while he played, he was the best. He was a double champion with Cibona in the European Cup and one in the Cup Winners' Cup, which he also won as a Real Madrid player, with the Yugoslav national team he won silver and bronze in the Olympic Games, champion of Europe and world. His proudest moment was when he won silver in the 1992 Summer Olympics with his Croatia, the first big competition of his independent state. Only the mighty American Dream Team, the greatest basketball team of all time, was better than Dražen and his teammates.
He arrived in the NBA at a somewhat different time, in 1989, when the players outside of the USA were not appreciated as much and the times were hard. But that did not stop Dražen – he struggled in the Portland Trail Blazers, but luckily he transferred to the New Jersey Nets. After his arrival, the times were changed because Dražen, and the rest of his generation, paved the way for European players in the NBA who became the faces of the best basketball league in the world. Dražen showed the Americans that they were not the only ones in the basketball world.
After he was finally acknowledged and after he played his best season in the NBA, the curtain was brought down on his magnificent career. Only a day before, on 6 June 1993, he played for Croatia against Slovenia in the Polish Wrocław for the qualifications for the European Cup and while the rest of the team flew from Frankfurt to Zagreb, his deadly mistake was taking the car from Munich. In 2002 he was introduced in the Basketball Hall of Fame – Dražen Petrović arrived where he belonged. A legend amongst legends.
Damir Dobrinić,
editor and journalist of
Sportske novosti (Sports News)
