Do You Remember Them #22- Robert Prosinecki
- Andrew Cheam
- Aug 20, 2020
- 5 min read
Biodata
Full Name: Robert Prosinecki
Nationality: Croatian
Date of Birth: 12 January 1969
Position: Midfielder
Former Clubs:
1986- 1987 Dinamo Zagreb
1987- 1991 Red Star Belgrade
1991- 1995 Real Madrid
1994- 1995 Oviedo (loan)
1995- 1996 Barcelona
1996- 1997 Sevilla
1997- 2000 Dinamo Zagreb
2000 Hrvatski Dragovoljac
2000- 2001 Standard Liege
2001- 2002 Portsmouth
2002- 2003 Olimpija Ljubljana
2003- 2004 NK Zagreb
2005 Savski Marof
International Career:
1989- 1991 Yugoslavia
1994- 2002 Croatia
Achievement:
Red Star Belgrade
1987- 1988 Yugoslav First League
1989- 1990 Yugoslav First League
1989- 1990 Yugoslav Cup
1990- 1991 Yugoslav First League
1990- 1991 European Cup
Real Madrid
1992- 1993 Copa del Rey
1993 Supercopa de Espana
1994 Copa Iberoamericana
Dinamo Zagreb
1997- 1998 Croatian First League
1997- 1998 Croatian Football Cup
1998- 1999 Croatian First League
1999- 2000 Croatian First League
Olimpija Ljubljana
2002- 2003 Slovenian Football Cup
Career
As a recognition of the young players, FIFA World Cup had awarded the ‘Best Young Player Award’ to the outstanding young talent in the particular tournament. Despite the award only officially been rewarded in 2006, FIFA had organised an online survey to choose the ‘Best Young Player’ of the World Cup between 1958 and 2002 for each tournament. The main character of the article was the winner of the ‘Best Young Player’ in the 1990 version and went on to play for two different countries in his career. He is Robert Prosinecki.
Robert Prosinecki started his youth footballing career in Germany, where he spent his childhood. He was part of the Stuttgarter Kickers youth setup. At the age of 11, Prosinecki and his family went back to Croatia and he joined Dinamo Zagreb as the youth player. After several years in the youth setup, Prosinecki occasionally got some first-team appearance in the 1986-1987 season, where his debut was against FK Zeljeznicar. However, Prosinecki moved to Belgrade to join Red Stars Belgrade when Dinamo Zagreb refused to offer him a professional contract. He even got recognition from the Yugoslavian legend, Dragan Dzajic.
His life when he left Zagreb was nothing but wonderful. Prosinecki also established himself as a first-team regular in the Red Star Belgrade team alongside the experienced player like Dragan Stojkovic and Zarko Durovic. He was also named as the tournament best player when he represented Yugoslavia U20 side in the World Youth Championship in Chile. This Yugoslavian youth team were full of future world-beaters with the likes of Zvonimir Boban, Robert Jarni and Davor Suker in the same squad. Prosinecki was so highly rated that Red Star Belgrade attempted to bring him back from Chile after the group stage so that he can play in the 1987-1988 UEFA Cup second round tie. Only to be stopped by the intervention of Joao Havelange, the FIFA president at that time to keep him in the Yugoslavia U20 side to continue his tournament in Chile. This had certainly shown the high recognition shown towards Prosinecki when he was still a young prospect.
During his four years spell in Belgrade, Prosinecki helped Red Star Belgrade to win numerous silverware, including 3 Yugoslav First League title, one Yugoslav Cup and of course the infamous 1991 European Cup where they beat Marseille in the final. In the meantime, Prosinecki was also the mainstay of the national team and represented Yugoslavia in the 1990 FIFA World Cup, helped his nation to reach quarterfinals and scoring 1 goal in the process. He was also later been voted as the best young player in the tournament by the football fans years after the tournament ended.
European mega-club came calling and Prosinecki joined Real Madrid during the 1991 summer transfer window for a fee around 15million Euro. With this huge price tag on top of him, Prosinecki certainly carries a lot of expectation from the Real Madrid board and supporters. However, injury struck almost immediately when he joined Madrid. He got sidelined by a series of muscular injuries and only managed to appear in 3 matches in the league, with a goal scored against Barcelona in El Clasico as the shining moment of the dull season.
Prosinecki’s performance in the second and third season was still far off the expectation by his huge price tag despite escaped from injuries concern. He was sent out of loan to Real Oviedo for 1994-1995 season to rejoin his former manager, Radomir Antic, even though he slowly rediscovered his form by scoring 6 goals in all competitions on 1993-1994 season at the Bernabeu side. In Real Oviedo, Prosinecki played his best football yet in La Liga. He recovered his physical and psychological state and started to be a regular in the Croatian national team.
After a successful spell in Oviedo, Prosinecki reaffirmed his intention to leave Real Madrid and joined Barcelona on July 1995. However, injuries struck again and he was forced to miss the first part of the La Liga season. By the time he recovered, the Barcelona manager at the time, Johan Cruyff didn’t trust him and made him the squad player. Despite the lack of playing time, he was still selected as part of the squad member to represent Croatia in Euro 1996. He expected to rejuvenate his career in Nou Camp after the tournament.
However, It became worse for him at the following season as Bobby Robson reduced Prosinecki to friendly matches. In the first half of the 1996-1997 season, Prosinecki only managed to make 3 appearances in all competition, both in UEFA Cup Winners Cup. In order to gain more playing time, Prosinecki joined Sevilla in December 1996 to help the team to escape relegation. He was the main man of the squad and finally rediscovered his form, scoring 4 goals in 20 appearances for the Andalusian side. Unfortunately, Sevilla was relegated despite his impressive form. This also marked the end of Prosinecki’s disastrous spell in La Liga.
After Sevilla suffered relegation from La Liga, Prosinecki returned to his homeland to rejoined his former club NK Croatia Zagreb (Dinamo’s old name) in 1997. His performance back to his homeland was very impressive as he helped NK Croatia Zagreb to win the league title but also helped them to reach the Round-of-16 in the UEFA Cup, only lost to Atletico Madrid by a 2-1 defeat in aggregate, scoring 5 goals in 6 matches in the process. Prosinecki was also selected in the Croatia squad for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, where Croatia finished the tournament in third place, scoring twice in the process. He was the midfield general in the team to enable this Croatian side to cruise towards a third-place finish. After the historical moment, Prosinecki returned to Zagreb and helped his team to win another two more league titles and qualified for the Champions League group stage for the first time.
Prosinecki left the NK Croatia Zagreb on July 2000, where he started his nomadic football journey since then. He signed for fellow Croatian club NK Hrvatski Dragovoljac with a two-year contract and a clause which indicated that he could leave the club if a foreign club made an offer to him. His stay in the club was very brief and joined Standard Liege on January 2001, where he played until the end of the season. Prosinecki signed for English First Division (equivalent to EFL Championship) side Portsmouth on a one-year deal for the 2001-2002 season, where he scored 9 goals in all competition in the process. He remained the cult hero in Fratton Park until now and named as the all-time best Portsmouth eleven, being the only non-British player to be selected.
After he left Fratton Park, Prosinecki joined Slovenian side Olimpija Ljubljana for one year. He won his last trophy in the form of the 2003 Slovenian Cup at there, scoring in the final. He spent his last two years of the professional career in Croatia, played in NK Zagreb and low tier club, NK Savski Marof. He finally hung up his boots in 2005.
Post Retirement
Since his retirement, Prosinecki started his managerial career where he remained until the time of writing. His started his managerial career as the assistant coach of NK Zagreb and Croatia national team. His first ever managerial role was as Red Star Belgrade, where he won a Serbian Cup in 2011-2012 season. Prosinecki is now managing the Turkish side Denizlispor. He was also an entrepreneur where he invested some money in launching a restaurant in Zagreb.
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